One of the important things we need to understand about God and the things of God; He is not bound by the same laws and rules as the physical world. God is the originator of the multiverse (though I don’t know that it works like it does in the Marvel universe). God can be everywhere, all the time, at any point in time.
For instance, we operate in a linear timeline. What is to take place next week can’t happen until what goes on today, tomorrow and the rest of this week. I can’t make my house payment until my paycheck arrives. I can’t repair my car until I take it to the mechanic. Our world operates linearly.
However, God is not bound by our linear time and space. Though I am praying about an event in the future, and I can’t be there until that time comes, God is not bound by those same laws. God can say, “It is finished,” today because he can see and be in next week…now. This is why God isn’t worried about my future. He already knows how it ends, and He has already been at work in areas of my life…before I’ve even been there.
Stripped. Clothed. Learned.
I understand this is pretty deep for a Tuesday morning, but it matters to how we operate in our everyday lives. How God operates matters for me today. Let me give you another example:
“Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”
Colossians 3:9-10 NLT
Paul is writing to the church in Colossae about the preeminence of Christ above everything and everyone else. Christ changes us. Which is what Paul is saying in these two verses in chapter three. Specifically, Paul says we have:
- Stripped off our old sin nature.
- Put on our new Christ nature.
- Become like God.
Here is what is important about this idea from Paul, all three actions are taking place simultaneously. There are three motions, but they are all done in one act. In our physical world, this is impossible. We take off our old nature. Stop. We put on our new nature. Stop. We become like God. Stop.
This is vital to us who follow Jesus. We are currently being changed – we are losing the old sinful parts our ourselves, as this is happening, they are being replaced by Christ-like parts, and simultaneously, we are becoming like God. There is no in between state.
The future is now.
Let’s go back to the future.
As I imagine it, it is like some sort of machine designed for the family in the old cartoon The Jetson’s. This imaginary machine is stripping me of all my old, unGod-like clothing, and simultaneously printing new Christ clothing on me, while shooting a God-infuser into me.
Here’s my big point: I don’t work on one, then another and finally the last. I am doing all three at once. Don’t just stop sinning, replace it with a Christ quality. Don’t just put on a new, good habit, learn and become more like God.
And of course, it’s not you doing this. As you submit to God, He, through the Holy Spirit, is changing you, completely…now.
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