Spring time is upon us once again, well for those of my readers in the Northern Hemisphere at least :).  This is such a great time of year.  The temperatures begin to rise, baseball begins, and we begin to see things come back to life.  We see trees begin to bloom, we see flowers begin to grow.  Green returns.  Life returns all around us.  Restoration has begun.  I was sitting outside the other day as I watched the dogwood trees begin to bloom across from my house and God reminded me the awesome metaphor that Spring is for Jesus Christ.  It is a constant reminder year after year of the works of Jesus and God’s continual pursuit of our hearts.

As I have shared many times before, Jesus offers healing and restoration by our faith in Him.  Isaiah 61 shows that he came to heal the brokenhearted an set the captives free.  He came to restore us.  We all know very well that we are born with a sin nature that covers every part of us.  We inherited this since the fall.  We are born into a world of sin and because of this nature we are in constant war with the world and with ourselves.  We weren’t designed for this sin nature though.  Man chose the world over God.  Adam chose Eve, this brought the fall of man.  Since then, God has been pursuing us to restore us.  He has been after our hearts to restore them to the good they were meant to be.

So I look at Spring.  I look at life returning.  I look at the new life around us and it just reminds me of the beauty of God’s pursuit of our hearts and the beauty of the restoration of our hearts.  All things made new.  The dictionary defines restoration as “renewal; revival; reestablishment” and also “the return of something to a former, original, normal, and unimpaired condition.”  That’s what happens when Spring rolls around.  Plant life is renewed.  The circle of life continues.  Life is reestablished.

Isn’t that exactly what God is doing with our hearts through the finished works (life, death, resurrection, and ascension) of Jesus?  I think so.  We are given a new nature in Christ.  Because of his finished works we are made new.  Our hearts are restored to the glory they were intended to have.  Ephesians 4 tells us to let the Holy Spirit renew us and to put on our new nature to be like God – truly righteous and holy.  Because of Christ, our sin nature is shed.  We can put off the old man, if we choose to drive a steak in the ground and seek His will above ours.

This restoration happens a little by little, every day that seek God and we have to make th choice to do so.  We can’t just walk around saying, “Yep, I’m saved” and then not seek Him for the healing we need just like I talked about in my deeper dive into the stream of deep restoration. Jesus began the restoration of my heart over the past few years, but it wasn’t until I decided to fully surrender that it just completely changed my heart.  Now today, I have to continue seeking Him.  I have to ask God to restore and renew every single day.  I ask for the full works of Christ over my life everyday.  I ask for the the counsel, comfort, strength, and guidance of the Holy Spirit everyday.  I thank God everyday for creating me and choosing me just as he chose all of you before He made the world.  It’s what I pray for everyday now.  I need restoration every single day.  We all do.

Again, we are all jacked up in some way.  God shows me new things all the time that I need His counsel and healing through.  Because of the wound of our sinful nature, we will always have to battle until we come to our full glory with Christ in Heaven and join him at the Wedding Feast.

Just think about all of this.  Look at everything around us as we see new life sprouting everywhere.  As we see the natural world around us become restored.  It’s an awesome feeling to know that God is working on hearts in the same way.  Restoring us to our original, unimpaired condition.  What we, as His image bearers, as his sons and daughters, were always meant to be. Jesus is making all things new and that includes us.  Our restoration begins with our walk with God.  As  Leanne Payne states, “The soul is restored through union with God.”  Walk with Him and seek an intimate relationship through Jesus Christ and He will bring you to restoration.