<\/p>\n
Chip had become an old man, and when he returned to the small town where he had grown up, hardly anyone recognized him.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t because he looked so different. No, he\u2019d been back to visit throughout the years. He had kept up with people he\u2019d known in high school, and they were familiar with each other\u2019s aging appearance.<\/p>\n
What was different about Chip was that his character had changed. He had always been a \u201cclever devil,\u201d as some called him. He would come to town, hang out with the locals, wait for the right opportunity, and then say something political or religious or something else in a thorny way. Then he\u2019d leave as people started bickering with one another. He seemed to enjoy stirring up disagreement.<\/p>\n
But now Chip was different. He\u2019d learned that cancer was going to take his life soon. And he\u2019d met Jesus through a local ministry in his neighborhood.<\/p>\n
So he came back to town a changed man. Though he was old, he was new. He was kind. Generous. Apologetic. He called himself a friend of Jesus. Everyone talked about it. What an amazing change!<\/p>\n
Chip was a new creation, even as his body was dying. He was \u201cin Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chip was also an echo of Christ\u2019s resurrection, the beginning of God\u2019s big project of making a new creation where all who are \u201cin Christ\u201d can live with him forever!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chip had become an old man, and when he returned to the small town where he had grown up, hardly anyone recognized him. It wasn\u2019t because he looked so different. No, he\u2019d been back to visit throughout the years. He had kept up with people he\u2019d known in high school, and they were familiar with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[956,86,269,181],"class_list":["post-25985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-devotionals","tag-creation","tag-daily","tag-devotional","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}