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 WHAT IS TO BE SEEN?

2 Corinthians 3:17- 4:7 “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So, all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image. Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.”

What should the world see in Christians because Jesus Christ lives His Life in us? They are meant to see Jesus as He transforms us.

Our confession, our profession of faith in the Lord Jesus is to be confirmed by the way we live out that faith, believing what He has done and is doing in us. Living out the Gospel is about a moment by moment reconning that our strength and ability to live this New Life comes from the strength of His Life being lived in us. We are to speak and live the Truth that Jesus Christ has died, that He is risen and that He will come again…soon.

It is only when we recognize and settle the issue, accepting that we are utterly and absolutely dependent upon the Lord Jesus to be able to follow Him, that we experience the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to really live it. We must embrace the fact of our absolute weakness to live out what the Lord has given to us. We must learn to live trusting Him and not ourselves. Even what we do know, what has been worked into our lives by His grace, is enabled because He lives His Life in us. He lives in us to live through us transforming our lives by His power to reflect His reality to a world still deceived and blinded by sin and death. Apart for Him, we can do nothing, but we can do all that He asks of us by the power of His Life working in us.

Our fallibility and frailties are touchstones for the world to see that this great treasure of Eternal Life we have changing us and making us ever more free comes from the Lord and does not originate in us. It is not innate to us. We have received new Life and it has come from God. And since the Lord is able to redeem, reclaim, and restore the likes of us, it is a sign to all who do not know that Life to put their hope and faith in the One who rescued us.

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