Extreme Makeover (by Pastor Linda Pugsley)

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Did you ever watch that TV show that follows the building of a brand new home for someone? The family sends in a video of their need and why they should be the recipients of this new home. Ty and his staff come out, assess the situation and then start the process of building. But did you ever notice that they don’t go into the ramshackle mess of a home that is there and fix that up, but totally knock down the existing home and build it completely new from the bottom up. The old is replaced by the new.

That is exactly what God has to do with us. This is not a “re-do” of the mess we are. Coming to Him means that He will knock your socks off, so to speak, and start from scratch! Sort of like the caterpillar thing—a whole new creature emerges!

A while ago, I heard another good analogy to the extreme makeover we must go through to live a life in Jesus...from ugly to beautiful. Our beginnings are ugly...like the old rhyme, “U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi, you’re ugly, you’re ugly.” We are ugly, like an old beggar in the streets (which is a good picture of our spiritual condition before Jesus starts His extreme makeover in our sorry lives).

• Our clothes are ripped and torn and dirty—He gives us His Robe of Righteousness
• We are twisted and rotten to the core—He gives us His clean Spirit within
• We are prideful of our knowledge and abilities—He gives us His knowledge and power, and in that comparison we realize just how lacking we are
• Our hair is dirty and scruffy—He gives us the crown of Holiness
• Our teeth are yellow and broken from all the bitter sarcasm and biting remarks, judgment and lies have spewed out of our mouths—He fills us with living water that flows to heal and encourage the brokenhearted
• We long for possessions and hoards of money—He gives us His treasures of love, joy, peace, patience, etc.
• Our fingers are knarly and pointed from years of pointing them at others—He gives us unconditional love
• Our feet are beaten and worn, bleeding from a lifetime of wandering over rocky places we should never have been—He shows us the narrow way that leads to the eternal kingdom
• We are carrying a huge burdensome pack of black, dark sin—He takes the burden of sin and we have the freedom we have longed for
• Our hearts are shredded and shriveled up like a prune, barely able to pump and keep us going—He gives us a new fleshy, soft heart

So, you see, Jesus did not come to wash our old clothes but to give us new. He did not come to give us a brace to help bind our twisted core, but to make us straight. He does not want to work with our knowledge but to give us better. He didn’t come to brush our teeth but to give us a whole new mouth. He doesn’t want to give us “stuff” but to give us Him. He isn’t going to put gloves on us to cover our crooked hands, but will put the “hand to the plow”. He is not going to put fancy new shoes on broken feet, but rather He gives us the gospel of peace so we can walk the walk. He certainly isn’t going to give us a new duffle bag to drag our sins around—He removes the burden of sin. And He certainly is not going to give us some pill to strengthen a ripped and torn heart, but He gives us a totally new one that will beat to the beat of a different drummer!

What God is talking about is an EXTREME MAKEOVER…a total renovation not just a paint job and duct tape repair...religion does that! Becoming this “new creature” hurts so much sometimes because God has to rip out what we have built. He has to do that, not as punishment, but in order to replace it with all new. What He builds remains forever (and He knew you before your bones were even formed!). It has to be that way because nothing unclean, broken and incomplete can stand in His presence. All the reconstruction, even though painful, is lovingly done so we may be made new for here and for eternity. Don’t hold on to the moldy, broken and rotten anymore. Send Him your request for an “Extreme Makeover”. Let Jesus come in to your heart and make you brand new, total and complete. C’mon, we’re all dying to see that completed project and say, “Move that bus!

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