Leaving It All Behind

   There’s something about the beauty and grace of a butterfly that captivates me.  As they flitter about in all their splendor, you’d never know that they were once something else.        

     A caterpillar is already a butterfly it just doesn’t know it.  Inside it’s body is the dna of a butterfly.  It matures into what is already true.  A caterpillar is made to become, a butterfly.  

      Clinging to a piece of silk it has woven, in an act of surrender, the caterpillar hangs its head down, sheds it’s skin and begins it’s transformation.  Hibernating inside the protective shell, it becomes what it was designed to be.    There is no straining to make something happen, no criteria to fulfill.  There is only a relinquishing of who it was to become who it is.

     This speaks something deep into my soul.  Inside of me is the dna of Jesus.  I am a daughter of the Most High God.  His robe of righteousness covers me, inviting me to enter into my transformation.  Like the butterfly, as I bow my head in submission, shed my old man, I can become what He always imagined me to be.

      I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me.   I don’t live by my faith.  I am made to live by His.  It’s His faith inside me lived out that makes the difference.

      Jesus spoke one phrase to the disciples, “Come follow Me and I will make you......  It was His invitation to their metamorphosis.  As they followed where He led, seeing what He saw, entering into what He entered into, they were transformed.

    In order to be transformed the disciples had to leave everything behind.  Nothing of what they were went with them.  Their identity was left behind.  They found themselves utterly dependent on the only one who knew the plans.  As they lived in the moments with Jesus, they were changed.

     That’s the way it works.  We leave behind the ways we have lived, walked, survived by our own efforts and enter into a place of resting in Him and His faith inside us.  As we bow our heads in submission His work inside us, waiting to erupt,  begins.  

     We will never be able to change ourselves into who we are.  The more we try the more we will hinder the transformation.   We must leave all our efforts behind, pick up our lives and follow Him.  

     Our identity is sealed inside us.  As we surrender ourselves to follow, it’s then He begins to unveil what’s already there.  We mature into who we were made to be.

       

       We have been given a complete new core identity.  We are not who we thought we were.  We are more, so much more.  We bear the image of the Most High God.  We are His Beloved.  We have been given the dna of His righteousness.  Christ’s dna is now our dna.

      We cannot get more “godly” than we already are.  We are complete in Christ.  We have all of Him.    We are loved, totally and completely.  Our sin no longer defines us, nor do our efforts.  He completes us.  He perfect us.  He makes us right.

        Will you dare to believe that whether you see it or feel it it’s true; you are a new creation, right now.  Would you dare to believe that even though your behavior might not be godly, you are, because He is, in you.  

      The dna is set.  Nothing can change that.  Will you enter in and be who He already knows you are?    May you dare to believe that you are a new creation right now and that nothing more is required of you than that you enter into that “cocoon” of righteousness and be changed. 

      With a twinkle in His eyes, a smile on His lips, and a motion of His hand Jesus says to you and to me, “Come follow me and I will make you....”

     “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”  

   II Corinthians 4:17

    This is also posted at the Internet Cafe

©copyrighted:  2009 Julie L. Todd