10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.
11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
2 Peter 3:10-14 NLT
A world filled with God’s righteousness. That’s the easy part of this scripture to talk about. I have an easy time looking forward to what is to come. A place where God’s will is done and we are good to each other and things are the way they always should have been.
But I can’t skip over what will happen before this. The old heaven and earth will be destroyed. God will not allow it to remain. It will make way for a new and better thing. This scripture reminds me of the old Whitney. The person that had to pass away so that she could be raised to life with Jesus. I passed through fire, and many areas of my life needed to pass away and be made new.
How I spoke, what I did, the things I watched, and my relationships. First went the music. For years I had listened to absolutely anything I wanted to. It didn’t matter what they said, what they did, or who they served in the spiritual realm. Songs that I once found relaxing and even sang to my children now showed themselves to be filled with deep darkness and sadness. Upbeat songs that I danced around the house to or exercised to were filled with sex, addiction, and brokenness.
I have always loved writing, but I wasn’t using it for God. My notebooks were filled with lust, anger, betrayal, and sadness. God prompted me to throw them all away in the dumpster one evening. I was sad to see them go because I was so emotionally attached to them. What I didn’t understand at the time was that they were love letters to another god. They sat in my nightstand under my Bible and called to me. “Come and feel all these things again and let me wrap you up.” God decided it was time I stopped answering their call.
My friendships changed. Some friends were just plain uncomfortable around me now that I went to church and read the Bible, and some I was uncomfortable around. It was hard to find something to talk about when our conversation turned to the people we hated and the affairs we had had. I would slip back in, drink too much and smoke, then feel guilty in the morning. God continued to wash my sins and give me the grace to do better the next time. He also gave me a few Godly friends to teach me and build me up.
The things I watched and read transformed. It has peeled away in layers, and I am horrified each time God reminds me what I allowed to entertain me in the past. It was all about sex, drama, mockery, fear, and witchcraft. This was how I spent my free time! It’s crazy to me now, and there are very few things to watch and read that I can feel the Holy Spirit is comfortable with.
Sometimes I allow the old me to have a say. What should be dead and gone starts fighting for life, hoping to reverse the process. You would think now that the new thing is here it would be easy to be new, but I start watching those old shows again, or I fall back into that old behavior. It feels easier and often more comfortable to rely on old toxic comforts and patterns than to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12) and follow Jesus more closely.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Cor 5:17 NIV
But now the new thing is here. The Bible says that I am a new creation, and I truly am! I am filled with God’s righteousness, which means I am more and more uncomfortable with practicing sin or watching someone practice sin. When it starts to creep in God reminds me to fight back, repent and run toward Him. To not return over and over again to the things He has cleansed me from even if it’s easier some days to be the old Whitney. His path is narrow.
So just as the old man, passed away the Bible says that the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment, so today, I need to make every effort to live a peaceful life that is pure and blameless in His sight. I want to live on His new earth, the one that is filled with His righteousness.
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