We hope you enjoy this excerpt from Barbara’s new book, Remember: A Four-Week Devotional for Eastertide. Says Barbara, “I wrote Remember because I wanted us to savor what Christ did on the Cross a bit more—to walk the roads He walked and learn from the moments He shared with His followers who were just like you and me.” We have limited quantities, so be sure to order yours today. We’re hoping the book will be your new favorite quiet time devotional.
If you’ve ever known someone who became addicted to drugs or alcohol or who suffered the side effects of medications for a disease, you know what it means for a person not to be himself or herself. Reason, logic, common sense, and personality can all change so that you feel as if the person you once knew doesn’t exist now. And in many cases, that actually happened. The substance robbed the person of the characteristics that once defined him. It is tragic and sad to watch.
A similar tragedy happens when teens or young people spend enormous amounts of time trying to be like someone they admire. They force behaviors and language to appear like the person they admire, but family members watching see the sad truth.
It’s not unlike the example Adam and Eve set for humanity when they compared what God had given them with the knowledge that God was, in fact, superior. The serpent’s not-so-subtle suggestion that this disparity was not fair led them to believe his lies and then to surrender their free will to his agenda over God’s. The power of their sin changed their personalities and their true selves. They fell short of the purpose for which God had made them.
Today, as Christians living in a non-Christian world, a multitude of voices fill our minds with a wide array of opinions and beliefs telling each of us to find ourselves, be who you want to be, discover your true self. This value system entices each person with the hope of importance, recognition, or even fame in the eyes of other people. Those six words shine the light on our mistake. We look to people for value instead of our Creator.
While we do need to seek to understand our unique makeup so we can maximize those gifts, any realization of our identity as Christians made in His image must come first from our Creator. Instead of looking inward to “be ourselves,” God’s calls each of His children to look upward to Christ, to recognize His supreme value, His unending love for us, and to elevate Him as He deserves. Only then will we be freed from the snare of self to become all we were meant to be.
God stated His goal simply: “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). God wants His own to be made like His Son who did nothing on His “own initiative” (John 5:30). but in perfect communication with His Father lived every minute of every day with His self, His flesh, His desires surrendered to the will of the Father.
In the beginning, humans were made like this in the image of God. As Genesis describes the scene, Adam and Eve’s sinful rebellion distorted, disfigured, and dulled God’s image in us. Now that we belong to Him again through Christ, our surrender to Him allows His restoration work to begin to transform us into what we were always meant to be—holy like our Father.
One theologian called the process of God’s changing work in us “redemptive continuity.” Paul wrote, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6). God does the transforming work, not us.
He is changing us from ordinary humans into glorified beings when we see Him face to face. As Mike Mason wrote, “The truly righteous person, it turns out, is the one who places no expectations on himself. From God he expects everything, but from himself he expects nothing, because he knows he is dust.” Our work is yielding to His work. It’s the key to becoming like our beloved Savior, Jesus the Christ.
To help us envision what God is doing in our lives after He saves us, C. S. Lewis tells the tale of a cottage renovation.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.”
The most helpful parallel in Lewis’s illustration for us is the long timeframe of our transformation journey. Each of us brings significant sin and strength of will that the Father must deconstruct during our sanctification (becoming like Christ). And like building construction, multiple delays and difficulties and disappointments will accompany God’s work for the length of our lifetimes.
The goal of the Trinity is to return His growing family to what He intended in Eden—people who walked with God, reflected God’s image, and did the work He created them to do while living holy and pure lives like His Son.
As we turn our eyes to Jesus Christ, God’s perfect image bearer, and follow Him as humble disciples, we begin to absorb and mirror His qualities like gentleness, kindness, forgiveness, justice, and love. Looking to Jesus, we begin to become truly human. In Christ, Dane Ortland writes, “we become our true selves. We are given back our humanity.”
He is risen, so we might too … one day!
For Eastertide reflection:
1. Throughout this devotion, one clear theme is woven: Who controls you? In the beginning, we looked at the controlling influence of substances and other people. Then we looked at Jesus, who did nothing on His own initiative, and Adam and Eve, who did everything on their own initiative. Then we looked at God’s intentions. Take a minute to write out what God desires to do in you.
2. Now, talk to Him about your desire to control your own life (for we all do this). Finish by surrendering to His control, whether this is the first time ever, or the tenth time today. Surrendering is a daily repetitive action that allows Him to change us into the image of Jesus.
