We are who we are.
How many times have we heard that one? Accept me like I am, or don’t accept me at all. I am who I want to be. Let me be all that I can be.
Understand, there is truth in those words. We want to be all we can be, and we don’t want to hold anyone else back in the process. After all, God created us to be human, and we cannot change that. We are who we are.
However, think of the 100-year-old house over in the next town. The fat columns lining the porch say, “Stately!” However, when we step inside, we see what the house really is. It’s a hundred years old, and nothing can change that.
Or can it?
First we rip out any rotten wood, replacing floor joists and trimwork until everything is in tip-top condition. Secure. Safe. Durable. We can choose the word we want to use, but by any measure, that house will stand another hundred years, if we have any say in the matter.
Next we get to the wiring and the plumbing. Of course, the HVAC systems need updating, or else we’ll freeze in winter and swelter in summer. And we need updated bathrooms…as well as a functional kitchen.
Soon we have tossed back our remodeling funds, and we are out of money. Our house is functionally perfect, but the plaster on the walls is still 100 years old, and it looks it.
What’s to be done? It’s a fortune to replaster, and to sheetrock over our original walls? That’s like buying a Coach satchel and carrying it around in a plastic bag. No way! Our house is restored to its original perfection, we crow. No way are we going to wrap it in a plastic bag!
The Bible, of course, is not about fading 100-year-old houses, but it is about people, and people fade with the ravages of sin. Even when we fix the foundation and redo all the systems that make us functional as people, all that the world continues to see is our faded plaster. We’ve been scarred, and that’s the impression others have of us.
We need to be wallpapered in Jesus. Yes, wallpapered. It will work for that old house. We can cover our faded century-old plaster, and our home will scream beautiful to anyone who steps inside.
We are the same. Jesus will make us beautiful.
2 Timothy 2:15 tells us:
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
That’s our wallpaper right there. When we glue Jesus all over us, we will be the beautiful person we were intended to be all along.
When we get stuck on Jesus, he will remain stuck on us.
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Code: FGO.J.25.14.vp