01/27/2026
Are you an occasional practitioner of the Holy Spirit? Do you do the things of faith in your life by utilizing your spiritual gifts, but then once they have been accomplished set those gifts aside, to be used another day? Or do you possess Spiritual Grace, which is a state of faith where the gifts of the Spirit are so ingrained in you that they have become inseparable from who you are in grace?
“until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
Ephesians 4:13-14 ESV
We are meant to mature in Jesus, and to become more than the mere image of him, but to be as He is. We begin our Christian lives as a photograph of Him. All of our efforts are spent in learning of Him so that we can imitate Him more closely, and to change the old man that we were into what we see when we look at Christ. We learn what sin is by understanding the law but we begin the process of separating ourselves from it through Jesus.
“For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
Romans 7:5-6 ESV
So, as the photograph of Jesus develops and we see ourselves resembling Him more clearly, our ability to imitate who He is changes. Something wonderful begins to happen... we begin to mature into amazing new creatures; we are changing yet again. What we have been perfecting externally begins to turn inward. In this phase of our spiritual development, we take our Spiritual Gifts and slowly internalize them as we gain and perfect Spiritual Grace.
Have you ever heard the song “The Rain in Spain”? It is from a wonderful play, and movie, titled “My Fair Lady”, which is about an uncultured cockney girl who a phonetics professor attempts to transform into a person who can speak and act in such a way as to fool those cultured aristocrats around her into believing she is a stately English lady. The instruction she receives begins with a series of painful lessons which are meant to help her learn the mechanics of cultured speech, and courtly behavior. Some of the tools used are wonderful songs such as... “The Rain in Spain” which through its lyrics we come to realize “falls mainly on the plain.”
So her teacher, the arrogant phonetics professor, begins the lessons, and the girl eventually imitates the mannerisms of a cultured lady; she talks like a lady, walks like a lady, and exhibits the mannerisms of a lady, while continuing to revert at will back to her old self. Her mentor is perfecting her image... no, let’s call it the full embodiment of an English lady… far different from the crass creature she once was.
But then something even more remarkable happens... she ceases to imitate a lady and finds that she has become one, and not only has she become one, but her teacher falls in love with who she now is. She has taken those things that were once imitated and made them real within her. If you have never watched this movie, I highly recommend you do so because it is a prototype to what we experience in faith.
We begin our journey of faith by painfully learning to imitate Jesus, and as we perfect His speech and mannerisms, we are able to convince those around us that we are indeed Christians, but then something further, and amazing, happens to us as well. We find that what we once imitated has become who we now are; we are no longer a reflection of Christ but an embodiment of Him. We are now unable to separate from Him and return to the old sinful person we left behind. In this way we are no longer mere users of Spiritual Gifts, but the embodiment of Spiritual Grace.
Are we moving towards becoming the graceful creatures that God desires us to be? Are we morphing into what can be smoothly absorbed into Jesus, and pleasing to God? Or are we caught in constant imitation as we return time and time again to who we were before we met the Lord? There is an old saying that goes like this “Practice makes perfect”, and that is true, but at some point the practice must end, and the real event has to take place. Are we taking our lessons to heart, and allowing them to transform us, or are we putting them on and taking them off like a change of clothes?
There came a point in the movie “My Fair Lady” in which Eliza Doolittle discovers that her new clothes have become those in which she is most comfortable, and that her old clothes are repulsive to her. We find this to be true as Christians as well. The person we once were can never please us again, and who we are in Christ has become our true selves.
Sure we are a Christians, believers, and people of faith, but let’s not get caught up in the vicious cycle of returning frequently to our old cockney selves such that we never truly become who God desires us to become... we never take the image of Jesus we have been imitating, and realize that it is now who we are. The person of Christ should now live inside us, and we in Him. The person who once worked at forgiving is now able to forgive without thought, and the old person who was controlled by sin finds that they are now in control.
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
John 14:20 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the Spiritual Gifts you have provided us with, and for the Holy Spirit that teaches us to use them. Thank you for the role model we have in Jesus, but even further Lord, thank you for perfecting us as we abide in Him and are separated from our sin. Thank you for making us new persons in Him. Thank you Holy Father for the Spiritual Grace that now defines us. Thank you for who we have become, and for our inability to return to the life we once knew. By your love, mercy, and grace, you have used the Spiritual Gifts you have blessed us with and transformed us through them into new creatures. The Apostle Paul said this of us…
“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
It is because of my belief in this that I praise your name; you have made me into an amazingly wonderful creation. Now use me Father to glorify you and may my new self in Christ please you always. I pray that your grace will become more than my salvation and transform my entire being. Holy, Holy, Holy are you my God, who has given me a full measure of Spiritual Grace and made me eternally pleasing to you.
“and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:17 ESV
Amen, Amen, Amen!
Rich Forbes