"It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing." George MacDonald
Sometimes we forget that we were saved from a particular place within sin. We were not saved as "nearly perfect" beings, but as wicked, completely lost and utterly depraved shadows of what God created us to be. It should not surprise us, then, that we daily fail to live up to the fullness of the image of perfection that was meant for us.
However, there are times we get comfortable, content that we are "arriving" at that destination. We start to see ourselves as something better than we were when we were saved, or than we were last year, and we mistake that as having entered into that perfection. We forget that God is always at work - and will always be working - to complete His image within us. If we are realistic with our walk, we recognize that we are "already-not yet." We already have all of the promises of God latent within us, placed there by Him, being activated by His Holy Spirit. However, they are not yet brought to fruition, much like the reality that my children have an adult burgeoning within them...but the growth has not yet come to completion. We say the same about conception - there is more than just a "potential" human being that has been activated. It is not potential, but imminent.
We, too, are imminent Saints - unstoppable Holy Ones. So it does surprise us when we see the vestiges of the old man or woman still arise within us. That cuss word slips out, that anger becomes uncontrollable, those thoughts creep into our head and we entertain them, or that old friend temptation brings us to the edge, perhaps even over the edge, of sin once again. It is at these moments that we begin to look backward, instead of forward.
As the quote above pointed out, our reality is that we are sinners, wherever in our growth we may be at this time in our lives. What we see surfacing, displeasing though it may be, is who we really still are - those dying pieces of seed shell that will fall off of us as the life growing within bursts forth. So look forward, not back. Be honest, realistic, about who you are - a sinner saved by grace, undergoing a process of becoming. We are not there yet. The destination is clear, but it takes humility to attain it. It is our promised inheritance and it is our present, unfolding reality. Don't get caught up in the sorrow of who you were, as you see it come forth, for it comes forth only to die, that the new man might come to life in increasing measure.
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14
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