Sunday 04:25:10

Becoming What You Already Are The Scriptures teach that we are to work out our salvation. We are to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. But do we ever rise to that totality of love and devotion? We cry out regularly like the apostle Paul in Romans 7, “What a wretched man am I.” We get frustrated with our progress. We feel like we’ll never get better or figure out our place or calling or that we’ll always struggle with our sin. The truth is that our change, spiritual growth is a painfully slow process. The apostle Paul talked about his spiritual goals in Philippians. Philippians 3:7-11 Philippians 3:12 12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (ESV) That very statement is the key to endurance and joy. “Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Or “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” All my reaching and striving is not to belong to Christ. We already belong to him. All my reaching is not to earn God’s favor. We already have it through Christ Jesus. All my effort is not to become acceptable to God. I have already been accepted by Christ. All my reaching and striving is to complete what is lacking in my likeness to him. One of our greatest sources of joy and endurance is that in the imperfection of our progress we have already been perfected. “14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:14 In the same sentence we are “being sanctified” and we are already “perfected”. Being sanctified means we are imperfect and in process. We are becoming holy – but are not fully holy. And it is precisely these – and only these – who are already perfected. The joyful encouragement is that the evidence of our perfection before God is not our experienced perfection, but our experienced progress. The good news is that being on the way is proof that we have arrived. The Bible pictures this again in the old language of dough and yeast. In the picture, yeast (leaven) is evil. We are the lump of dough. 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (1 Corinthians 5:7) Christians are unleavened. There is no leaven, no evil. We are perfected. For this reason we are to “cleanse out the old leaven.” We have been made unleavened in Christ. So we should now become unleavened in practice. In other words, we should become what we already are. The basis for all of this: Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. The suffering of Christ secures our perfection so firmly that it is already now a reality. Therefore, we fight against our sin not to become perfect, but because we are. Not to earn the love of God, but because we already have it. Not to become acceptable to God. We have already been accepted by the sacrifice of Christ. Like Paul, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”