It’s been a few years since Apple computers had all of us, well at least us the fans, on pins and needles. Over the last few weeks, all Apple users and fans have been in heavy anticipation of the new operating system, IOS7. This IOS update has been presented as the most significant change to the Apple’s mobile OS in a long time. It was said that this OS will change your life.
I don’t doubt that for one bit, because I see it, experience it first hand on my phone. It looks different, feels different and to be honest it makes the iPhone look like a new phone. There is a little b it of the old stuff, but it’s only remnants, nothing to write home about.
When using the OS, you don’t do the things you used to do on your phone. You treat it differently and respond to it differently. It really is a change, a change for the better for Apple iPhone users.
This got me thinking, about the gospel and how it changes our lives. Paul, in his second letter to the church in Corinth, tells them that anyone born of Christ is a new creation; the old had gone and the new has come (2 Cor 5:17). So if we use parallels between the IOS update and to being born again we see the familiar results. When we acknowledge and see Christ as Lord of our lives, we change, we are made new. Our thinking, our behavior, our attitude is changed completely. We don’t see or do the same things we used to. Our hearts and minds change.
From who we were in the past, objects of wrath (Eph 2:3) and facing destruction, to this glory we share in Christ – God has redeemed us and makes us new. He cleanses us, wipes away our sins and forgives us. By being born again, we are adopted into God’s family and our lives will never be the same.
So, much like the update for IOS, we receive some sort of an “update” – a new life all together when we receive Christ and unlike the Apple which is periodic, when we accept Christ, we do it once and that counts for eternity.
Irvine Rambau
