I’ve had the opportunity to move a fair amount in my life, so it’s always a journey to place my “old” furniture and things around a new space each time I relocate. Many of the things I put on the walls and on bookcases were gifts, things that once belonged to family members, things I purchased on trips to see family and friends. They are things that reflect me and my life, but they are in a new place. They look the same, but they also kind of don’t. And I wondered, “Is this at all like what it’s like to be re-born?”
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3: 1-6)
I’ve been a Christ-follower my whole life. I did not have the “conversion moment” that so many talk about. I’ve just been on a journey “to heaven’s own bright king.” (This is a lyric from an old song On the Road to Beautiful by Charlie Hall.)
I guess you could say I’ve been in the process of re-birth my whole life. And yet, I’m still me.
The familiar things that now surround me in my home are not unlike my old self. They still look the same – by themselves. But in a new place, they are altered. And I think this is a question for us to ask at the beginning of a new year, when we often spend time reassessing our lives and or priorities.
A Christ-follower should always be in a state of transforma-tion. We never arrive at perfection, but are able, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to put to death our sinful self and become more like Jesus in every moment.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)
This passage often comes to mind when I know I am being pressed, altered, and transformed. So in reading the rest of the passage, all of my thoughts about re-birth begin to make sense.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus ’sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Corinthians 4:10-12)
We are still “us” but constantly being changed by the gracious work of our Lord and Savior. This is one of the amazing parts of the gospel: it remains the same truth yet is never stagnant. It moves in our hearts and minds and bodies.
Though the gospel never changes in its truth, we learn its truth more deeply when we seek him and as we mature. As we come into a new year, I encourage you to spend some time not just setting a new year’s resolution, but asking the Lord where and how he wants to move in you this year. What might be some ways he wants to stretch us, ways we never considered before?
In Christ, Pastor Stephanie
