Possibilities for Life

God created the world and everything in it, including you and I. His idea was that he would make people free - free to do good or evil, free to love God or not. The creation - the physical world and all the various types of plants and animals - did not have this same freedom, so their nature and very lives are maintained by their ingrained nature and their relationship to God is unchanging. Humans, though, have always had this freedom, but from the beginning we have rejected turning to God and loving him. Instead, through our pride, we have turned inward and loved ourselves - our physical nature, our accomplishments, and what we will can become.

After the initial rejection, God decided to create a covenant with a certain people called Israel. They were God's chosen people and were also free to love or deny, but they chose also to reject God, choosing instead to turn from God to a life of independence and serve their own customs and traditions.

But God continued to pursue his creation. The lover wanted to reach his beloved, and in hindsight, we can see that all of time pointed towards the coming of Christ. He would bring all people and all things into unity under himself. This is the offer God has extended to us today. The letter to the Ephesians says that "God's unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ".

God's basic mission for his people was not changed through this entire process. He wanted to love and be loved in return, but further he wanted his people to choose him and show the rest of the world an alternative to the broken life that they live without hope for saving grace. He wanted his people to show the world how to love.

My answer to the question, then - What particular possibilities for life - for being a new thing in the world - is God offering us today? - is that there is nothing new about God's plan. God, though Jesus Christ, offers the same possibility for life that he offered the first man, Adam, and the chosen people, Israel. It is up to us whether or not to accept or reject the possibility that God has laid before us. What is new, though, is us. We are new creatures and a new creation because of the rebirth - or second chance - that God offers each of us through Christ.

I think the real question that we need to be asking is, "What is my role now that I have experienced this new possibility for life?" To this question, we each have to answer in regards to our specific call. What are the places of division within myself? What are the places of division within my community? Do I have a place - as a member of the Body of Christ - in the uniting of all things? What has God moved on my heart to pursue? The answers to these questions are my call, my reason for being, the new possibility for my life.