sanctification... an unbinding...

Sunday's sermon led to thoughts... (click here... to read them in full...)

John 11:32-44... the raising of Lazarus from the dead... the basis for the message...

The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

John 11:44 ESV

Lazarus rose from the dead still bound in his graveclothes... quite a contrast to Jesus's resurrection...

Then Simon Peter came... and went into the tomb. 

He saw linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, 

which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths 

but folded up in a place by itself.

John 20:6-7 ESV

Jesus left His shroud behind in the tomb... He walked out completely free...

The thought that we... in our spiritual resurrection... stand in Lazarus's place has left an impression... and I see the sanctification process... the growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ... as the way we become unbound... making the way for us to truly live as new creations... even though we find ourself in the same body... and in the same place...

The reading on the treadmill this morning... put words to this thought...

When people ask me what it looks like to follow Jesus, I usually say that following Him looks like dealing with all of the issues everyone else does --- disappointments, tremendous joy, uncertainty, the whole bit --- and having your mind change all the time as you learn how Jesus would've dealt with things. Following Jesus is about having your paradigms shift as you navigate a wide range of emotions while living the big life Jesus invites us into. Because I know Jesus, where I once thought of things in one way, now I think of them in another way. It happens all the time, every day.

--- Bob Goff, Love Does

We still deal with all the same issues as everyone else... but something is different... we begin to think about things differently... respond... even react differently... than we would have... we become unbound... loosed... from the ways of the world...

Jesus... He's the one that loosens what binds... following Him... and allowing Him to work in and through us... dying to our own ideas and the ideas of the world... is how we become freer and freer... to be who He calls us to be... who He created us to be...

This unbinding... begins in our minds... learning to look at things... and react to things... as Jesus does...

... be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2 ESV