If You're a Follower of Jesus

If you’re a follower of Jesus, then you are a new creation.

You don’t live in the garden anymore, true. You were made in the image of God, and sin fractured that image, but it’s still there. Latent in your humanity. And the Spirit of Jesus is at work in your life. He’s re-creating you from the ground up.

But keep in mind that creation is a process, not an item on a to-do list. And the creative process takes time. A lot of time. What you and I call “the creative process,” theologians call “sanctification.” Don’t get scared off by the technical jargon. To be sanctified means “to be set apart” from the ugly, distorted human you used to be and remade into the real you.

Get that. The real you.

To God, your identity — what makes you you — isn’t rooted in the past (who you were) or in the present (who you are), but in the future — in who you are becoming.

Me? Are you sure? Yes.

In theology this is called “eschatological realism,” which is a way of saying you are in the process of becoming who you really are.

You are “holy,” and you are in the process of becoming holy.

You are “pure,” and you are in the process of becoming pure.

You are “blameless” (or without defect), and you are in the process of becoming blameless.

God starts with the end in mind and works backward, kind of like reverse engineering. I think of Paul’s language to the church in Ephesus. “Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Put another way, “This is who you are. Now live up to it.”