Second Chance

A New, Improved Contract

Are you losing hope in your current situation? Do you long for a better arrangement? Perhaps you need a fresh start at work, in your family, your friendships, or your personal life. For too long you've felt trapped in old patterns.

Hebrews addresses those kinds of circumstances. Thousands of years of Jewish history were built on God's covenant with Israel. But Christ came to rewrite the script of history. He offers a superior covenant rooted in better promises and without fault (Heb. 8:6–7). As the prophet Jeremiah had foreseen, under the new arrangement wickedness will be forgiven, sins will be forgotten, and the old covenant will fade into the shadows before vanishing altogether (Heb. 8:12–13; Jer. 31:31–34).

What an amazing message! We can have a fresh start. Bondage to old, seemingly unbreakable patterns can be broken and replaced. But first we must confess our condition and accept God's provision, which includes His agenda for change (1 John 1:8–10). Therein lies the fresh start for our lives.

The same pattern of newness holds true for relationships. Owning our responsibility and admitting our faults open the door to new ways (see Acts 19:18–20; James 5:16).

Have you learned the joy of confession, apology, and repentance? Do you need some breakthroughs among your peers, friends, or associates? Take the risk to speak the truth to them about your failings and seek a renewal in the relationship.

Forgiveness Unlimited

Do you ever feel hopeless regarding your faith? Do you doubt God's willingness to forgive you over and over again?

Peter (John 12:15) might easily have felt that way. He had risen to a position of leadership among Jesus' followers. He had even been given the “keys of the kingdom” (Matt. 16:19). And he had positioned himself as the defender of Christ when Roman soldiers came to arrest Him (John 18:10). But when he felt the heat of a national trial, conviction, and death, Peter denied three times that he even knew Christ (John 18:15–18, 25–27) and afterward disappeared. What Jesus had predicted about him came true (John 13:31–38).

So when Jesus engaged Peter in a conversation on the shore (John 21:15–23), Peter might easily have felt that he was already disqualified from further service for the Lord. After all, as we would say, three strikes and you're out. But Jesus reconnected with Peter and called him to genuine love and the continuation of His work.

Second and third chances are not often available in families, communities, or workplaces. All you have to do is fail once too often, and you're gone. But Christ offers tangible love and boundless forgiveness—to those who own up to their failures and repent (Luke 7:47). Can we offer anything less to our coworkers, families, and friends?

Second Chances

Peter asks us to consider Sodom and Gomorrah, which God did not spare (2 Pet. 2:6; Gen. 19:24). This and fifty other biblical references to those twin cities make two things clear: they could have been saved in spite of their evil, and God wants future generations like ours to avoid their mistakes.

For more on this topic, see RENEWAL, “Starting Over”.