Regeneration project
- Mar 3, 2017
- 2 min read
Shirley’s regeneration continues with the imminent demolishing of the PowerGen buildings.
In defining the actual word ‘regeneration’, we understand that there were two previous stages: firstly there was generation; this was followed by degeneration leading to the need for regeneration. There is a continuity between the thing generated and that which is regenerated. Think of the Castle Vale estate. In the 1960s, much planning and money went into generating a new community village to liberate people living in the inner-city slums. Just 25 years later, the area had degenerated and become a place where many people preferred not to live. Castle Vale was ready for regeneration. This happened, starting with the demolition of tower blocks in 1995 and then later, the building of new, better appointed homes for the residents. This necessitated some temporary disruption for people’s lives, but this was offset by the hope of what lay ahead.
This bit of local history can serve as an illustration of what the Christian message is about. It says God generated the heavens and the earth. He then formed man out of the clay he had made but, like electricity needs a generator, the man lacked life and needed to be generated by God’s own spirit. This is why the Bible says God ‘breathed into the man’s nostrils’.
Things started well, God and man were getting along fine. God showed himself to be generous. Everything in the garden was rosy but for that one fruit tree which God told the man and his wife not to touch. They touched it. As a result, everything, material and spiritual, went into decline. Degeneration was evident everywhere, most notably in the breakdown in relations between God and the man and woman who were God’s special creation and bore his very own image.
From that time on, God has been steadily working on his own major regeneration project. He has appointed a hands-on project manager who shares his vision perfectly. It is his own Son Jesus Christ. We are told that the plan is to give men and women a second birth or rebirth. Now it is by God himself that we need to be reborn or regenerated spiritually, so that we can truly grow into his likeness. We are called to believe that Jesus is indeed God’s right hand man; that in a profound way Jesus’ crucifixion has cleared a way for his regenerating work to happen within us. We are told by Jesus and those he commissioned to be teachers, that this regeneration will, one day, extend to the whole created order.
In the meanwhile, does the idea of God setting to work within you stir your heart? If so, tell him about it.