TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

“‘Come, let us settle this’, says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18 CSB

I was recently driving down the road when God brought my attention to a little dance studio in passing. A building that once was an insurance agency, now with a big sign out front reading the name of the dance studio. & just as swiftly as that insurance company packed their bags & loaded their moving vans & the dance studio found its place, salvation works the same. 

I constantly battle the good enough voices, reminding me of all my failures & ruined friendships & all round terrible decisions. The voices reminding me that I definitely didn’t earn it & I don’t deserve it. 

& then I pass a dance studio that used to be an insurance agency.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, & see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ & has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself., not counting their trespasses against them…”

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 CSB

You see, I don’t need to double check the inside to be able to assure you that you can’t buy insurance there anymore. You can’t call the dance studio & ask to make an insurance claim. Just because people might have sold insurance there before doesn’t mean there are remnants left inside, still working. Its not a dance studio with a side of Nationwide. 

You are not who you once were. & I don’t have to enter in to know that. You aren’t new with some old. You aren’t whole with a side of broken beyond repair. You are dressed in Christ. You are white as snow. 

Oh, do I constantly need the reminder. That even in my mistakes, the old me hasn’t ‘returned’. That his word didn’t fluctuate & didn’t malfunction within me, leaving a couple insurance men. I am still new. Morning by morning I awaken to another mercy filled day. Every poor decision & mistake ceasing to the power of the cross declaring, No, I have been made new. 

“We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-10 CSB

Its time to stop looking at our salvation as something that’s only working when we are working. We have been saved by grace. Grace is Jesus— its not anything we can muster up. It all goes back to Jesus, & if it all goes back to Jesus, then we, my friends, are made new. As new as a dance studio sitting in an old insurance agency.