New Creation

As often as possible, I love to raise butterflies as a homeschool project. O.K., so I really do it as a homeschool MOM project, as I love watching them at all stages in their development! The connections between them and our own spiritual life are so strong. Nature really will speak to us, if we will only listen. This photo shows two different chrysalis--one has hatched out and become a butterfly already, while the second is still developing. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the butterfly never comes out of the chrysalis stage. God offers to all of us the possibility of a new life--but we have to accept His offer. He won't force His gift on us. We must accept it, and only then will we be made new. Our old, ugly sinful life will be covered up wth Jesus' blood, and we will be given His righteousness instead.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!"

2 Corinthians 5:17

But even though we may have accepted God's gift, that does not mean that we are with no danger. Things of this world abound that will take our focus off of God and put it on ourselves. We make gods out of us--but we are powerless to save.

" Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8

"Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." 1 Peter 5:9

Praise God, we are not left without One who saves us!

(Just for the record, no, my cat Pumpkin is NOT allowed up on the table! But obviously, he does not obey the rules! Satan does not play by the rules either--he will try and get us when we are the most tired and discouraged.)

Jesus lowered Himself down to this sin-filled earth, leaving the glory of heaven, so that He might save each one of us. We do not deserve His gift--but He loved us so much that He came anyway, even though we have no merits of our own. Nothing that in any way makes us qualified or deserving of this gift.

My daughter Alison loves to release the butterflies to their new life.

To watch them take off to live the beautiful life they were designed to live. No longer crawling, now they can FLY!

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. " Romans 6:4