How many times have you heard that as a kid? As a kid, I remember the hand crank window handle that rolled the window up and down. (I also remember using a pair of vice-grips when the window handle stripped off)
As a kid, I remember the first time I used an electric window. I thought that was the coolest thing ever invented. I couldn’t keep my hands off the button. I would roll the window up and down, up and down, up and down. My Mom would finally yell at me – “Just roll up the window.”
This past weekend as Megan and I were taking the cargo van back to the rental place, she noticed the manual hand crank for the window. She asked, “Dad what is this?” I told her it rolled the window up and down. I told her about the days when the hand crank is all we had to roll up the window. Megan said, “COOL!!!” And then she proceeded to roll the window up and down, up and down, up and down. Something old had just become something new.
In John 3, Nicodemus had trouble with the concept of something old becoming new. When Christ told Nicodemus, “You must be born again”, Nicodemus could only think of the human side of birth. He could not comprehend the new birth in Jesus Christ.
The question for you is do you understand the concept of something old becoming new? I think that question is rhetorical, but maybe easier to say than to put into practice. We understand putting off our old self and putting on Christ in baptism. But the application of daily transforming our minds and hearts to be Christ-like is the challenge for me.
My prayer today is that I will wake each morning with the attitude that I will put away my old selfish self and that I will transform my mind and heart into something new, to what Christ would want it to be.
By the way, you want to know what I said to Megan that day in the rental van -“JUST ROLL UP THE WINDOW!!!”