We need new front steps on our house badly, but that costs a pretty penny. So it was cheaper to buy some time and just paint the ones we have. So that’s what I did. The paint I used is really cool stuff. It’s got gritty goop in the paint that will help us not to fall down the steps anymore when it rains. I’m not kidding here. But painting it on was like painting on mud pie mix. Not too much fun at all. The end result is really pretty though. If you didn’t know there were ugly steps underneath… well, you wouldn’t know.

I didn’t remake my steps. They are still what they are: old, weathered wood steps. They’ve just got a new outside. Inside, underneath the new veneer, they are unchanged.

Ever try to remake yourself? There’s a whole section in Books-a-Million where I live that says, “Self Help”. Many people have made many more dollars writing books to tell people how to put on a new coat of paint. A fake veneer that makes the world think some real kind of change has taken place and we are all new and improved. I think it’s funny, really. Telling a broken something to fix itself.

Self. Help. A broken watch can’t make itself run again, can it? No. The answer is no, of course. A watch has to be taken to someone who has knowledge about broken watches. And even then, it is fixed. Not made new again.

I can slap a smile on my face, try to improve my attitude, and try to see my situation differently. I can exercise, eat better, make new friends, and learn a hobby. Yet none of those things will fix me. Or you, either. They are not bad things, but they are much like a new coat of paint. After a while, just like my steps, the old is going to show through.

Real life change has to happen from the inside out, not the other way around. We need to be made new from the inside. This is what happens when we come to Christ and make him our Savior, our Redeemer. The Bible teaches that when this happens, we are made new.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  2 Corinthians 5:17

There, see? New. Not fixed. New.

So forget the self-help books, television shows, and websites. It’s all just a temporary fix, what they offer. None of it makes anything new.

I do love my “new” steps. But I am not fooled. Eventually we’ll have to bite the bullet and get new ones.

Jesus is continually making me new. It’s a process called sanctification. Little by little I become more like Him until you’ll hardly see any difference. Oh it won’t be completed for a while. But bit by bit He makes progress. I am new from the inside out. Pretty cool.