One of my favorite TV shows is Fixer Upper on HGTV. On that show, Chip and Joanna Gaines take old, run-down houses and transform them into beautiful, like-new, homes. They fix them up. I love watching the process, and the worse shape the original house is, the more fascinating it is to me.
I've been in a fixer-upper phase of my life over the past couple of months. My old, run-down, no longer useful, knee was fixed up. In my case the fixing meant replacing. Taking out the old one and putting in a new one. Again, I find the process fascinating. I'm amazed at what medical experts can accomplish these days.
Of course, the knee process is a little more involved than the house process. For Chip and Joanna, there's some demolition (out with the old) and then transforming the house to its like-new status. Once the new appears, that's it. But with a knee, once the new is in place, that's really only the beginning. Then the rehab begins, and that's hard work. Really hard work.
As I have been thinking about all that this morning, it occurs to me that there is a sense in which each of us is a fixer-upper. Each of us is born with a sin nature that needs to be transformed. That transforming, the fixing up, is available to us because Christ died to pay the penalty for our sin and to offer us the gift of His grace. Once we accept that gift, we are fixed-up, and the process of our transformation begins. Having accepted the gift of salvation, we are forever free from the penalty of our sin, and the process of transformation, our sanctification, begins.
On this Thankful Tuesday, that's certainly a reason to be thankful!
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23 NASB)
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB)
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