Update: Surgery on Monday went well. Have had some complications, but we are working through it. Thank you all for your prayers and support!
Matthew 11.28-30
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11.28-30)
Jesus came to restore in us the life that we lost at the Fall. He came to re-make us into the people that God created us to be in the first place, and to restore the image of God in us. The Lord accomplishes this through a three-step strategy: Position, Process, and Perfection
1) Step one is position, by which Jesus redeems us and makes positionally righteous before God. This is what Paul speaks to in the 2 Corinthians 5.21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2) Step two is process, which is the daily discipline of growth and transformation. Scripture speaks to this in 2 Corinthians 3.17-18: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
3) Step three is perfection. This happens when Jesus returns, gives us new bodies, and makes us perfect. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven … For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.“ (1 Corinthians 15.49, 52-53)
The Christian community focuses a great deal on #1 and #3, but not so much on #2. There are many sermons and books on our position and perfection, but not nearly as many on the process of growth and transformation.
I hear much about redemption and being forgiven of sin, and I hear much about the joy of heaven yet to come, but I don’t hear nearly as much about the daily discipline required for growth and transformation right here and now in the midst of the challenges of the still-fallen world.
The reality is that restoring the image of God in you means doing the faith-driven work of renewal of the moral, functional, and relational dimensions in your life. It means fully embracing the disciplined process of the life of God within you.
Practice on autopilot & go through the motions? You won’t get better. Practice in the comfort zone and avoid difficult work? You won’t get better. Quit when it gets boring? You won’t get better.
Want to get better? Respond to the promptings and power of the Holy Spirit in your life, and practice the right things, the right way, for as long as it takes
The call of Christ is a call to something that goes beyond being saved. It is a call from your Creator to return to him and to the purpose for which he designed you. It is a call to the disciplined process of reclaiming and building into your life the characteristics of the Imago Dei.
It is a call to be trained by grace so that you become a person of godly character, competence, and connection.
