Last year at an international summit of world powers in Doha, the capital of Qatar, global leaders launched the Educate A Child project. The project seeks to build bridges between nations, calling us to recognize our shared humanity and to intervene on behalf of those at risk. Further, the project believes that funding children’s development will ultimately yield to a more peaceful world.
The apostle Paul suggests that through Jesus, God has opened up a new possibility for all the people of the world—an entirely new way of being human. God created humanity good, but our rebellious choices have marred God’s work. Rather than abandon us, God fashioned a way for us to be “renewed . . . in the image of [our] Creator” (Colossians 3:10 NIV). With this renewal, God returns us to the good, human life He intended from the beginning.
Our new life, renewed in Jesus, sheds “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires” (Colossians 3:5). It casts off anger, malicious behavior, and slander (Colossians 3:8). In return, our new life transforms our human nature and reorders our core human identity (no longer Jew or Gentile; Colossians 3:11).
C. S. Lewis wrote: “One has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, and then down through the green, and warm, and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold, freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. The thing is human nature; but, associated with it, all nature, the new universe.”
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Matthew 27:1-10
More:
Scan Genesis 1:1–2:25. What picture do you get of the kind of humanity God intended for us? How does Jesus renew this vision?
Next:
Where does your humanity need to be renewed in Jesus? Where does the humanity of our world need to be renewed?
ehdlive on September 23, 2013 at 1:11 am
Since we now found our true nature (again) in Jesus, the baton is now on our hand to shine forth God’s light into this lost word. We have been set apart unto God, and the more we walk in our divine identity and in His divine ways, the more we will enjoy God’s blessings
winn collier on September 23, 2013 at 11:48 am
“true nature (again),” a returning home. yes.
tom felten on September 23, 2013 at 9:13 am
Winn, good stuff. As Paul, wrote in 2 Corinthians, “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Praise God for his transforming work in our lives!
winn collier on September 23, 2013 at 11:49 am
the transformation into life and hope. I want more of it.