September is here and with it the prospect of schools and colleges starting the new school year. Actually, September has always felt to me like the beginning of a new year. So much usually restarts in this month - including this blog after a summer break! We've seen in the past few weeks many things restarting as the Government tries to get life going again, at this stage of the pandemic. But it still feels so different, we are certainly not back to normal. There are still rules, guidelines and restrictions that affect even the most mundane of activities like going on a bus or visiting a shop. The optimism of early July has evaporated as COVID-19 cases are rising again in some parts of the country making local tightening of restrictions, and perhaps even lockdowns, necessary. Many have had to return from holidays abroad because rising numbers of infections have meant the closure of so-called safe travel bridges to holiday destinations. There is uncertainty and also concern as we wonder what will happen when autumn and winter come and as we see there are some who clearly are not taking the threat of the virus particularly seriously. All-in-all, it is not much of a restart, more a sort of spluttering back into life. Given the severity and scale of what has happened, we ought not to be surprised.

It has got me thinking about the 'restart' that God offers to us in the Bible. The problem we face, our sin and guilt before God Himself, is a problem too great for us to overcome ourselves, too serious for us to downplay and too  consequential for us to ignore. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), not just dying and that's it, but dying and then facing the Holy God for judgement. The outcome of His judgement of us is already known - guilty and deserving of eternal punishment, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire" (Matthew 25:41). "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

We can't restart our relationship with God and put it on a right footing. But God offers to give us just the restart that we need, a new beginning, a new life, a complete reset in our relationship with Him. To anyone who will repent (turn away from sin, confessing it to God) and turn to Jesus Christ in faith for salvation, God is promises forgiveness and a new life in Christ. A complete restart. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17) Unlike our own attempts at restarting life, this is something God Himself will do for us and which cannot, therefore, splutter or fail. It is like life to the dead. A Christian is someone of whom it can be said, "You were dead in your transgressions and sins...but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ" (Ephesians 2:1,4-5).