From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God. (2 Cor 5:16-18)
Despite the fact that we are declared as new creations in the scriptures we rarely feel that way. It seems to us that we still are the same old person doing the same old things thinking the same thoughts we always have.
This is all a question of appearances, isn’t it? The new creation is new through and through. It can’t be regarded or judged according to the flesh. It belongs to a different realm. It is a spiritual being manifested in soul and body. What a wonderful gift it is when we are imparted to see beyond appearances and behold our true self in faith. The self which is one spirit with its Father. The self He has beheld from before the foundation of the universe.
What a beautiful picture of ourselves we see when our consciousnesses are renewed to the true image of our being. The image He holds up as a mirror. This is the image we are transformed into beholding with our spiritual eyes as we go from glory to glory. We see beyond appearances in our own life and we begin to see the beauty in others as well, because finally we have arrived to the place where we accept and love ourselves with the same acceptance and love our Father has toward us in all His dealings with us.
In a process of the renewal of our minds we have put off everything which pertains to that old self, which really wasn’t a self. It was just a distorted version composed of lies. In this process we rediscover ourselves and find to our surprise that we are just as He is. In the same manner as we have found peace with Him we have found peace with ourselves.
This desire to change, to better ourselves has dissolved into nothing, because it was nothing. We are everything God says we are. We have given up that old self and its distorted view of its being and found our new life. In the realm of appearances it might look the same, but it isn’t. We perhaps continue to do the things we always have done. We work, we watch TV, we eat and we sleep. This is life! This is the perfect version of ourselves.
He was just a simple carpenter from Nazareth, but He was God’s son! What everything boils down to is this; who is your father? What spirit are you of? He has cleansed us once and for all, and thus, for the pure everything is pure. It is all of grace! What an incredible mystery this is; He united to us living as us in a world seemingly full of paradoxes to the unskilled eye. We are one, yet two.
What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Cor 2:9)
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