Like the leaves falling to the ground in blazing colors, we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Sometimes it can be extra powerful to look around us at what is happening and relate it to our own life and situation. As I write, leaves are accumulating on the ground. The winds have changed. The smell is of a new season. My thoughts begin to dwell on pumpkins, pumpkin spice, cider, apples, corn mazes, sweatshirts and cozy evenings. Those are happy thoughts connected to good memories.
But the leaves falling also brings with it the reminder that winter is one season closer. The warm weather will leave for a time. Mittens, heavy jackets, shovels and plows will be readied for the inevitable snow. Leaves falling remind me that everything is coming to an end.
We are a lot like the fall leaves. We still have brilliant moments of beauty as a human race. We show, even if it only lasts for a few moments, glorious color that shows off the capability built into God’s crown of his creation. We have such passion, creativity, uniqueness, love and beauty. However, like a beautiful color flashes for a moment in the flames of a campfire, so too is our fleeting beauty.
Romans 3:23 We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
This is a constant reminder for us all in this dying world. Good things fade. Beauty lasts only a moment. Even our greatest actions turn to ash given enough time. While this life has wonderful memories and beautiful moments, because of sin, we fall short of heaven and float down to where we will eventually be buried by the snow.
But that is not how our story ends! Winter is not the end. Spring is coming! Bright green will soon break through the stillness of white. New growth will find a way through the frozen ground and live by the power of the sun. So too will we who have fallen short be revived through the resurrection power of The Son of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Romans 3:24 …and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
While we have fallen short, Jesus has not. He was planted in the ground in the dead of winter because of our sin so that he could bury it in the ground once and for all and rise up by his power and righteousness on that first true Spring day. Jesus has undone and overcome the effects of sin so that we too may live a new life because of the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We are remade. We will live again!
Seasons come and go. Leaves grow and fall. Humans live and die… and then live again.
Like the leaves falling to the ground in blazing colors, we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But like the first plants rising up from the dead ground in the early days of spring, we are justified freely by his grace from our transgression, sin and death so that we may rise up to new life through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Enjoy each season knowing that because of Jesus the greatest time is yet to come! Amen.
Prayer from the lyrics of the hymn Abide with Me:
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me
Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me
- Pastor Titus Buelow - Founder of Underground
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God bless and keep you!