Of all the reality shows on TV today, my favorite is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In this show a family is whisked away from their home for a week while a crew of designers and carpenters remodel their once ordinary home into a state of the art showplace. The family chosen is generally has a special need. One episode featured a family of nine children who lost both their parents in the span of two weeks. Another episode featured a family of four expecting triplets. Generally by the end of the show, the family has a wonderful new home and I’ve gone through at least a box of Kleenex.
As Christians, we too are special-need recipients of a wonderful makeover. In II Corinthians 5:17, Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” We’re not the same as we used to be. We’ve been born again. Just as the design team on the show tears down walls and builds them back up in a new way, so God tears down the walls we’ve built in our lives and remakes us in his image. While the house is gutted to its bare minimum, the carpenters work with the existing structure of the house instead of razing it to its foundation. God also doesn’t scrap us and start over. In Revelation 21:5, the risen Christ proclaims, “I am making everything new!” Notice he says he makes everything new, not new everything. God could easily and justifiably toss us aside and just start over again fresh, but Christ’s main business is redemption, redeeming us for something greater in him than we ever could have imagined before.
In Jeremiah 18, God directs Jeremiah to go to a potter’s house. Jeremiah watches as the potter works at his wheel and becomes displeased with the vessel he’s working on. So being the creator, he smashes the clay back into a lump and starts over. Did you notice that he doesn’t get new clay? He takes the clay he has and makes something better. When we trust our clay into God’s hands, we too are formed into something much better than we are.
The family on the show could easily turn down the makeover. They could decide that they just don’t trust this team of strangers to completely wreck their house and start over. How do they know how it will turn out? What shape will their house be in when they get home? Shouldn’t we just leave well enough alone? Who are these people and why are they waking me up at 6:00 a.m. with a bullhorn?
Too often we turn down our makeovers from God. We’re not too sure about this new stuff. What I’ve got now may not be great, but at least it’s familiar. Sometimes, we let God make some changes, but not all of them. We don’t want to go too far with this whole change thing. Change is scary. The trick is trust.
So much of our Christian life is about trust. Do we trust God to save us? Do we trust God to direct our lives? Do we trust God to remake us into something different and wonderful? Are you ready for your Extreme Spiritual Makeover?
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