Being made new

New. We all love new. Even the classic things in life, we love to see them restored to “like new” condition. We reminisce about the old days, when these old things were once new. We all have an inner longing and oft unfulfilled desire to see the fresh, the improved, the restored, the new.

This, of course, is not limited to trinkets and memories, but to ourselves and our surroundings. The feelings of disappointment, frustration, brokenness, and futility all come from this innate understanding that what once was new, whole and free no longer is. We’ve all felt it, we’ve all seen it, and we’ve all experienced it.

God’s Word would tell us that this stems from the beginning, which we can read about in the book of beginnings, called Genesis. Genesis 1:27 tells us that,

“God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

This means we were designed to reflect God and His glory by being like Him in our attitudes and actions through obedience to the way He designed the world to work. In other words we were made to be aligned with Him in every way as to look just like Him.

This image was fractured and tainted in us all because of our choices to disobey God’s order and pursue our own way of doing things. We still maintain the core remnants and spiritual memory of what it was like, but like a cracked mirror our reflection is incongruent and inconsistent, and thus we feel the results of being broken; no longer new.

Ephesian 2 tells us this same thing. It explains that our image reflection was not new and alive, but old and dead. It then utters two of the most powerful words in all of history - But God.

But God decided to take what was broken, old, and fractured and make it whole again.

It says in chapter 2 verses 5-10 that through faith in Jesus we are being made new again, saved by Jesus’ grace and mercy towards us. Verse 10 in particular tells us that we are God’s masterpiece, in other words a perfect reflection of who He is, having been recreated, or made new, in His image, for His purpose in a total realignment of our lives.

This is what is called the gospel, the good news - that Jesus is in the business of taking that which is broken and making it whole; that which is incongruent and realigning it; that which is dead and making it alive; that which is old and making it new.

Truly, what amazing news this is. Now while we may wish this was a complete transformation in an instant, the truth is it isn’t. This is what some theologians call the “Already, but not yet”. This simply means that the act has been completed - salvation has been purchased, the result is guaranteed, but the effect is a gradual one.

It is much like what Michelangelo said about his Masterpiece of a sculpture called “David”. When asked “How could you have achieved a masterpiece like this from a crude slab of marble?” He replied “All I did was chip away everything that didn’t look like David.”

After salvation, it is guaranteed that we will be made into the image of Jesus, but it is a process to chip away all of things that don’t look like Him in us and on us. Theologians call this process sanctification, which means to be set apart or made holy. It is also the essence of discipleship, or becoming like Jesus.

In this process there are four main areas of focus that Jesus spends His time chipping away at and shaping to look like Him. Our Minds, our Hearts, our Hands, and our Feet. Each one of these ties into a deeper reality of who we are and how we live.

Over the next four weeks I aim to work through each one of those areas in an effort to help us be true disciples made to look like our Creator and Savior.