New beginnings

Can you remember your last set of new year’s resolutions? Did you make any new resolutions for the millennium, just a few years ago? Have you managed to stick to all of them? Some of them? Any of them?

We often make big plans for a new beginning. Sometimes we take advantage of a change of location or vocation. You go to a new school, start a new job, move to a new area. You might hope that this time round it will be different, that the problems that might have dogged you before will disappear, that you won’t have to face old frustrations again. But don’t we often take our problems with us, and find that – although things around us have changed – we haven’t changed very much ourselves?

Sometimes we attempt a deliberate change to our way of life: a new diet, a new “lifestyle”, a new exercise regime, or something else that promises ‘a new you’. But how often do we find our resolve weakening quickly, old habits dying hard, and the ‘old you’ pushing to the surface?

If things get really bad, perhaps we would even like the opportunity to “start over” – to leave everything behind and start from scratch. Perhaps you have even tried that – family failures, broken marriages, criminal activity, wrecked lives and crushed hopes – and you haven’t really escaped yet?

Genuinely new beginnings are desperately hard to make, and the most important one – one that lies at the root of all lasting change – is a change of our relationship to God: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. . . . God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses against them” (the Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 17-19).

This is a genuinely new beginning, a radical change in our relationship with God. We are sinners, cut off from God and hope, but when we are reconciled to God – brought back into a right relationship with him – then all things become new. This lies at the root of all new beginnings: this is the starting point for a genuinely new life on earth, and eternal life in heaven.

How does this happen? “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.” Such a new beginning takes place through believing in Jesus Christ: “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” The genuine hope of a new beginning is not found in you, but in Jesus Christ. Come to him, and you will have new life and real hope, now and forever.

The infinite condescension and love of Christ

Hereon consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace, and eternal salvation. Multitudes of these invitations and calls are recorded in the Scripture, and they are all of them filled up with those blessed encouragements which divine wisdom knows to be suited unto lost, convinced sinners, in their present state and condition. It were a blessed contemplation, to dwell on the consideration of the infinite condescension, grace, and love of Christ, in his invitations to sinners to come unto him that they may be saved, – of that mixture of wisdom and persuasive grace that is in them, – of the force and efficacy of the pleading and argument that they are accompanied withal, as they are recorded in the Scripture; but that belongs not to my present design. This I shall only say, that in the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.

This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will you not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching? It is but a little while before all your hopes, your reliefs, and presumptions will forsake you, and leave you eternally miserable. Look unto me, and be saved; – come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest unto your souls. Come, I entreat you; – lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; – put me off no more; – eternity lies at the door. Cast out all cursed, self-deceiving reserves; – do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.

These and the like things does the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead, and urge on the souls of sinners; as it is fully declared, Prov. i. 20-33. He does it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you. And because this would not suit his present state of glory, he has appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations that are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.

Consider therefore, his infinite condescension, grace, and love herein. Why all this towards you? Does he stand in need of you? Have you deserved it at his hands? Did you love him first? Cannot he be happy and blessed without you? Has he any design upon you, that he is so earnest in calling you unto him? Alas! it is nothing but the overflowing of mercy, compassion, and grace, that moves and acts him herein. Here lies the entrance of innumerable souls into a death and condemnation far more severe than those contained in the curse of the law, 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. In the contempt of this infinite condescension of Christ in his holy invitation of sinners to himself, lies the sting and poison of unbelief, which unavoidably gives over the souls of men unto eternal ruin. And who shall once pity them to eternity who are guilty of it?[1]

---

[1] John Owen, Works, 1:422-23.