When God said, “Let there be light,” there was light.  When God said, “Let there be dry ground,” there was dry ground.  God’s Word created reality.  When God says, “All your sins are gone,” all our sins are gone.  When God says, “You are perfectly holy before me,” we are perfectly holy before Him.  God’s Word creates salvation. 

It is God’s Word that defines what is real and what is true.  In creation, God formed something out of nothing.  In salvation, God created life out of death.  Yet, there is a difference.  Our “old self” will continue to resist God and always be opposed to what God says about us.   

When a person believes in Jesus, God doesn’t simply destroy the “old” and suddenly recreate a “new”.  God doesn’t bulldoze over what is already there, but simply renders it “false”.  All our sins are absorbed in the cross and all of Christ’s righteousness is then given to us.  We are forgiven and we are changed, but not entirely.  Our old self is still with us.  However, our status before God is completely changed.  

A Christian is like a man who always has to put on dirty clothes after taking a shower.  Believers are holy and clean, God says, because of who they are in Christ.  They are also sinners and dirty because of who they are in themselves.  In a way, Christians are like butterflies trapped inside a cocoon.  The beauty, grace and image of God are there, but life is enclosed inside something contrary to God.  There is a desire to bust out of the cocoon and be perfectly holy and righteous, but we can’t do it on our own.   

The growth in a Christian life is not about straining harder, but allowing the Lord to build, strengthen and motivate us to try.  Living a holy and God-pleasing life only comes when Jesus is residing in us.  Transformation is the effect, not the cause of salvation.  When Christ returns on Judgment Day Christians will finally break out of the cocoon and into the being God originally intended for us.  

A new life in Christ can only be found through faith.  When we confess our sins and place our trust in God we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior.  God loves us as we are and desires for us to be a new creation in him.  Why hold back any longer?  

** This question and answer was inspired from the book, “Letters from a Skeptic” by Dr. Gregory A Boyd and Edward K. Boyd, Chariot Victor Publishing, 1994.