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Recycled by God

When you take your old coke bottles to Sarcan, do you know what they become? According to their web site, those bottles can be turned into polyester carpet, fibre fill for winter coats and sleeping bags, green house trays, the plastic scoop that is provided with your laundry detergent, even polyester fleece and t-shirts.

A shirt made from a pop bottle sounds sort of far-fetched, but when things are recycled they can be remade into just about whatever the creator wants.

Did you know that one of the great promises of the word is that God can and will re-create us? He can change us and make us into what he needs us to be.

For example, think about these words that Jesus spoke as he called his first followers: “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Notice the “I will make you” part. Notice, too, the new mission that they were given. Those men were fishermen. They had no training or instruction on how to lead, reach or teach others, but that did not matter. Jesus was going to make them into what he wanted and he continues to do that. He makes us useful in his kingdom and changes us into something we never could have become on our own.

In fact, it gets even better than that. Not only does Jesus recycle and redesign us, but he also puts us in the place where we can do our best work. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). God forms us but then he can reform us (in Christ) to do certain things (good works) which he has already prepared ahead of time for us to be involved in.

If we let him, God can move us from where we are into something that is more than we can dream of. We just have to be willing to let him work.

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