"I see no Changes"

One of my favouritest church words is "justified." I have understood it for mere moments at a time, until a visiting pastor taught that when one is justified, it is 'just as if they never sinned' and it stuck. I comprehend the word, yet its meaning in everyday life I find so much more complex. The thing I love about Jesus is this; He is and says so much seeming contradiction yet it is not, because it all fits. See for us at certain times He is this or that, but it fits on Him all the time. I wonder how John's head felt when he saw then wrote about the Lion that looked like a slain Lamb standing before the throne of God(Rev 5: 5-6), not to mention this Lion/dead Lamb guy IS God...In a world were most things can be explained, I love a God beyond my total comprehension.

The Son of God (who is too God) came that mankind may have life in abundance (John 10: 10). He came to free us from our bondage to sin and self, that we would be children of God, like He is, and we would love and serve others (like He loved and served us (Matt 20: 27-28, John 15: 12-13) He said, "When the son sets you free, you are free indeed!"(John 8: 36) It is also written elsewhere, "Behold you are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come!" (2 Cor 5: 17)- exclamations mine, because I love these words!!

But I see 'no' changes, the new came, but the old is still here. I see him every day. I am free but I am still bound. How come? Did Jesus lie? Did GOD LIE? I have heard defenders say He did not lie, we just cannot attain some of the things He spoke of. So God told us we could be something He knew we could not do? I thought part of the reason He became a Man was so that He could be, "...tested in every way" like we are and, "...still did not sin" like we should do (Heb 4: 15). He came to set an example(Mark 10: 21). So what's the deal? I still see 'no' change!

Paul teaches us to reckon the old man dead (Rom 6: 4-7,11), so he is still there. We have victory in Christ (1 Jn 5: 4-5), but we are still fighting our foe(Eph 6: 12). I think our life now is lived in a process of change. Unfortunately in changing form we are trying to swim upstream. It is more difficult, many times we tap out when it is too much, the old ways are easier or more enjoyable so we turn tail and swim downstream, but we realise our error and we are free in Him to re-turn to Christ - upstream. This is were that word comes in... He looks from the waterfall and sees us (by His blood) just-as-if-we-never-turned-tail! In our judgmental eyes there is no change, we keep flip-flopping. But in His Gracious eyes we are changed, the old is dead and the new (by His blood) is all that there is. Finally, at the end of our lives we make it to the head of the stream, there is nowhere left to swim, like Paul we have swam the course set before us, (2 Tim 4: 6-7) that change that started is completed. As our bodies die, so does our fight against the old. For in His here-after the old is gone gone baby gone. The new is all there is, and we are (totally!) free indeed!

Yes I am excited. This is part of the down payment of Salvation, this is the deposit, the earnest on the Promise of Eternity.