Spring is my favorite time of the year, especially this year it seems.  After a very cold and dreary winter, I have looked with great anticipation for springtime to arrive.  Well it is finally here! PTL!!!!

What I love about Spring is the warmer weather, the beautiful bluebird days, and most of all, the new life I see in nature as the grass becomes green, the trees begin to bud, and flowers begin to bloom after being dormant throughout the cold days of Winter.  I usually begin to look forward to the arrival of Spring shortly after the New Year.  As January and February drag by filled with their cold gray rainy days, my desire for the warm balmy days of Spring grows greater and greater.  With each passing day, I hope to see an early arrival of springtime weather.  But, no matter how long the winter or how cold and bleak the days may be, I know that Spring is coming.  I am sure of its arrival because that is the way God designed it to be.  I know as the winter draws closer and closer to an end, that soon warm weather will replace the cold, and new life will replace the grip of death winter has had on nature.

We have the hope of another Sping coming as well, when God wraps up the disease of death caused by sin and replaces it with the new heaven and the new earth.  The Apostle Paul spoke of this coming renewal:

Romans 8: 18-25 (NLT)

¹⁸Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. ¹⁹For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. ²⁰Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God’s curse. ²¹All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. ²²For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. ²⁴Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don’t need to hope for it. ²⁵But if we look forward to something we don’t have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently.

I don’t know about you, but I am patiently and confidently waiting with a springtime hope for this coming renewal of heaven, earth, and of those of us who are a part of the eternal kingdom of God.  Are you sure that you are a part of God’s kingdom? Are you certain of your salvation?  If not, now is the time to get ready.  Springtime (God’s renewal) is just around the corner.