I’m sitting here looking at a container of something called “Ultra Color Safe Bleach”. It takes out the stains and the bad stuff but leaves the intended colors behind. This is just like what God does for us. Each of us is a colorful character. How dull life would be if we were all bland or sparkling white. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.” Please note it’s our sins that are as white as snow. We aren’t.
I have actually witnessed cases through the years when a foot-dragging family member finally yielded and was baptized. The family enthusiastically started in making a “new man” in Christ. It entailed telling him or her all the old characteristics and mannerisms had to go. They wanted to create some perfect person that they themselves were not.
Being the new man that Paul speaks of in Romans is about overcoming soul-destructive, selfish habits. It isn’t about transforming someone into a non-recognizable human. Our personalities are the fruit of a lifetime of memories and experiences. We are the sum of all the years we have logged. God has no desire to bleach that away. God loves our color. God loves the things that make us us. On resurrection morning we get a new body infused with all those memories and experiences. We will be we forever. The difference will be a lack of self-destructive and other-destructive characteristics because we will care more for others than for ourselves.
Written by Roger Bothwell on June 21, 2008
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574