recycling  Modern science has recently made an amazing find! They have discovered extremophiles. They are microscopic organisms that actually recycle dissolved metals. These living creatures take in metallic waste and actually remake it back into its original form. For example, when they breathe in dissolved gold, they turn it back into solid gold, in its original form. They are actually doing this right now, deep in the ocean’s underwater thermal vents, where dissolved metals, including gold, are being spewed up.

   Isn’t it wonderful that what has been ruined by the white-hot pressure of a volcanic deep-sea fissure can be made whole again! This sounds much like what God does to those who are remade, or born-again, through Jesus Christ. Zaccheus was a dishonest, tax collecting traitor to his own people. After just one dinner with Jesus, though, Zaccheus was transformed into an honest person (See Luke 19:1-10). Mary Magdalene, a demon possessed lunatic, became a loving, caring person who bravely stayed with Christ through His entire crucifixion (See Luke 8:2 and John 19:25). Saul, who chased down and terrorized Christians, had a one-on-one meeting with Jesus Christ, and he became the most influential missionary for Christ that the world has ever seen (See Acts 8:1 and 9:1-22).

   In one way, the stories are all the same. What is broken and worthless God can make whole and worthwhile: “even when we were dead in our transgressions,

[God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Ephesians 2:5). I’m so glad that God has provided a solution to our wrecked and ruined lives. In fact, every week here at Bethel Chapel Church, I see people who once were being destroyed by the pressures of sin, but are now being restored by God’s grace. Lives that were once empty and pointless have become productive and joyful.

   When you think about it, God’s soul recycling program is even more dramatic than the work of the extremophiles. God is making something even more valuable than gold. God is in the business of creating brand new lives! “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

   Only God can do that kind of human recycling. Jesus made that clear when He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). That new life was only made possible because Christ “bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. (1 Peter 2:24).

   Not everyone’s soul is recycled or born again. God’s soul recycling program is only for those who fully trust the forgiveness that Jesus purchased when He died on the Cross: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). When we stop wallowing in our hopelessness and turn our lives over to Christ, He changes us from something useless, like dissolved metals in the sea, into something usable, like pure gold. “For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

   Isn’t it astonishing that God can use a tiny microorganism to picture what He can do with our lives? I’m so glad that God changed me many years ago when I gave my life to Him. I have never regretted it for a moment because I desperately needed recycling. If you are interesting in learning more, contact me, and I’ll send you free of charge the booklet “God With Us” by Alice Mathews.