09/13/2020
We say we are Christians; we say that our lives have been transformed by Christ, but has that conversion been solidified in the heat of our faith’s kiln, or is it still malleable, and able to be reshaped by the world around us? Our new Christ-like self is meant to be as He is... without sin, and founded on the Word of God, but we often treat it as temporary, and as such it does us little good. How firm are we in our faith, and how strong is the new creation that Jesus has molded us into?
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
Colossians 3:2 ESV
When I was a child one of my favorite classes in grade school was art, and when the teacher handed us boxes containing modeling clay I immediately started thinking about all the things I could form it into. I would make small bowls, saucers, animals, and soldiers, but at the end of the class we would take our clay and squeeze it back into its original shape then return it to the box from which it had come before passing it back to the teacher to be used another day, and made into new shapes. All the imagined shapes were only imagined, and the clay was not meant to be anything more than an image... to be reshaped over and over again.
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
Romans 7:18-19 ESV
Sometimes we treat our spiritual selves, our transformed lives, like a box of children’s modeling clay, and temporarily reshape it before returning it to its original form and stuffing it back into the world’s box. The old self, or shape, has not really passed away, it is just hidden in the shape of a small cross on which a tiny figure hangs, or a sagging cup which looks like a real vessel meant to hold wine, but when squeezed it returns to a nondescript block and any new shape it once portrayed is gone... the old having returned.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV
We are not meant to be transformed for an hour, or a day, but forever, and our shape is not supposed to be an imperfect replica, but a perfect, and fully functional, copy. We are intended to be as Christ is, and our old selves should have fallen away... never to return.
“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Colossians 3:3 ESV
We look around us today at our societies, and indeed the world itself, and they are chaotic. Satan has stolen our poor, underprivileged, and children, then squeezed them back into his world. He has taken bright young men and women, and deliberately formed them into his own image. If we ask all these who are lost, they will tell us that they know who Jesus Christ is, and who God is, they can even quote scripture, but Christ’s image has been crushed out of them by the weight of darkness, so that now they are once again returned to the world’s box. Where hope once lived there is only a lie, and peace is only a dream. These who were once of a good family have now been adopted by a deceiving father.
“Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
John 8:43-44 ESV
So how do we recover the lost, and transform what Satan has made to fit his twisted image? How do we transform sinners into Christ’s righteous new creation? Well we don’t do it by giving up on them, but by demonstrating not only what Jesus looks like in us temporarily, or in theory, but what He looks like every minute of every day in Spirit, and Truth. We need to stop flirting with the world, and making excuses for the lost, and we need to begin living and preaching the real gospel of Christ... not some new religion that has been made palatable, or reshaped to provide something the world can conform to without changing, or transforming.
“ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Colossians 3:17 ESV
We need to tell the world that we all live together under one God, one set of commandments, one gospel, and most of all... one definition of God’s love. In this way hope returns to the world, the bride of Christ is increased, and Is prepared for His return. Are you ready to demonstrate whose image you have been transformed into? Are you ready to take on a permanent Christ-like appearance, and change the world?
“Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”
Colossians 3:11 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, and for making it possible for us to be transformed into His image. Help us Lord as we struggle to cast ourselves permanently into the righteous and perfect man He showed us we could become. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who sent your Son to redeem us, and who’s Son has become the mold by which we are being cast forevermore. Praised be your name Father, for it is a name above all others, and glorious beyond description. You send us today, adorned as Jesus, into a lost world, and tell us to preach and teach the gospel. Help us to not only wear His robe, but to carry our cross before the world, and bring hope to the hopeless who wander, and are living in deception there. You have taught us that the Bible, your Holy Word, is not merely a book Father, it is the truth that lights the way for a lost world, and our guide to salvation, so open it to us, and let your a Holy Spirit give us exactly what we need to speak to the lost. Help us as we do your will, and find us pleasing in your sight, righteous, and welcome at your table forevermore.
“When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Colossians 3:4 ESV
Rich Forbes