Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

Happy Valentine’s Day! It is a day when we show love for both the gift and the giver. I chuckled yesterday as Pam and I were looking at Valentine Day gifts to give our girls and grandkids. I picked up more than one box of chocolates to offer as an addition to our gifts. “Those are not the best chocolates”, she said. I knew she was right, but the packaging looked inviting. She was reminding me that our girls deserve the best chocolates from mom and dad.

Jesus the giver. No greater love is this, than a man lay down his life for another. In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus laid everything on the line, by willingly dying on the cross for us. Jesus, the Son of God, bears the scars of His sacrifice of love for you.

Jesus’ gift. He exchanges sin for righteousness, old life for new, sinful past for new inheritance, old rags for robe of righteousness, our shame for His glory and honor, our despair for hope everlasting, anxiousness and worry for abiding peace, and the sentence of death for life everlasting with Him.

If your hands are already full, it is incredibly hard to receive something else. What’s filling your hands up today? Many are unwilling to let go of their passions and pursuit of their own lives, leaving no room to receive Jesus. To enter into the new life that Christ offers, a transfer from old to new has to occur. The old make look like its working, but in reality  it’s not the best life available. 

Today, right now, the new has come for you as a child of God AND is continuing of new is being delivered to you. Your past failures of yesterday are not bad enough to stop His mercies that are new for you every morning. Your feelings that you are not worth much and have little to offer get absorbed and disappear in the drops of blood shed at the cross. There is a cleansing in His blood that makes all things new.

I offer to you this short story by Walter Wangerin called  “The Ragman, The Ragman, The Christ”

The Rogman, The Ragman, The Christ

On this day, remember to open wide your heart to celebrate both the gift and the giver. Jesus the lover of your soul.

Blessings Love y’all