TOPIC 3: 
MY NEW IMAGE IN CHRIST

     All kinds of people come to faith in Christ.  Some are rich, some poor.  Some are attractive, others not.  Some are athletes, others nonathletic.  The family of God is very diverse . . . a mosaic of different nationalities, personality types, and talents.  Yet each one of us is special to God.  Even if we don't feel very special, we are.  To God, we are.

     No matter what earthly things we bring with us when we come to Christ (whether good or bad), God has a plan to change us for the better.  We must understand, however, that this is primarily an inward change at the heart level.  While all of us might wish to be more attractive or more athletic (or any one of a number of other things we might wish for), that is not what matters the most to God.  He is primarily concerned about our character.  It may turn out that in the course of time, God makes us more talented or develops our skills in a certain area.  But the change that He is most interested in concerns our inner person.

     God's desire is to make us more like Jesus Christ.  Colossians 3:9-14 tells us that we now have a "new self" which is being renewed:  ". . . to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him . . . .  So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.  Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity."

     When we come to God, we come just as we are . . . warts and all.  We may have been a very moral person (by humans standards) or we may have been on a very sinful path leading to self-destruction, but we are no longer that person we used to be.  In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we are told, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."  Regardless of what our morality may have looked like beforehand, the truth is that all of us were sinners who needed a Savior.  We stood condemned before a Holy God, and it is only because of His grace that we were shown mercy.  Now God is pleased to call us His "beloved."

     Having come to God through faith in Christ, He is now ready to begin an overhaul project with us.  He will work in our life (and it will be a lifelong process!) to chip away at the rough places as He conforms us into the image of Christ.  This means God is going to make us holy.  We cannot make ourselves holy, but God works to make us more Christ-like, and in doing so He makes us more holy.  This is not something we can do for ourselves (we don't have the power in ourselves to do that).  Rather it is a growth process.  Let me illustrate.  When we were born physically, we needed good nourishment and exercise to grow physically and develop a healthy body.  Similarly our spiritual new birth should result in spiritual growth.  Once again we need good nourishment (through reading the Bible and listening to good Bible teachers), and we need exercise (opportunities to exercise our faith and act upon what God is teaching us).

     In addition God gives us a new source of power to respond to Him in obedience.  This power comes from the Holy Spirit (discussed in Topic 5).  As we believe God and cooperate with His Holy Spirit, we grow spiritually.

     To sum up, as a new Christian you are already clean in God's sight.  Because you have exercised faith in Christ, God has done two very important things for you.  First, He has forgiven all your sin for all time.  Second, He has given you the righteousness of Christ.  In Philippians 3:9 the Apostle Paul spoke about this gift of righteousness when he described His joy in being "found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith."  Paul was describing in this verse His positional righteousness, how God actually viewed him.  Even though we are forgiven and possess a righteous standing in God's eyes, He desires to transform us practically into the image of Christ.  So my new image is Christ:  I now have His righteousness and God is at work in my life to transform me by making me more Christ-like.