A SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION (5)
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10
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A Spiritual Transformation (5)
Series: Ephesians
Robert Dawson
Ephesians 2:1-10
When Kristal and I lived in Creedmoor NC, the place where I had my haircut always had magazines and books lying around with the latest hair-styles and fashions in them. Sometimes they had pictures of a style makeover in them. They would have a before and an after picture.
- The before picture was usually some scruffy, geeky and unkempt looking guy and in the next picture you'd have to do a double-take to see if it was the same dude because now he looked like a model or a movie-star. (My stylist never managed to pull that off!)
- Or, you would have a picture of a rather dowdy plain-Jane looking lady who wouldn't grab anybody's attention and in the next she's suddenly competing for the title of Mrs. America.
The transformation was astounding. Comparing the two pictures, one thing you knew, they did not go to bed looking like that (scruffy, unkempt, dowdy, geeky or plain) and wake up looking like they belonged on the cover of GQ or Vogue. There had to be a reason. Something happened between picture one and picture two; a radical transformation occurred.
In the first two chapters of Ephesians Paul provides the church, believers, with two spiritual pictures of themselves, a before and after. Paul, rather than starting with the before, starts with the after.
He is intent on imprinting our identity in Christ on our hearts and minds.
- That after picture, the picture of our current spiritual state, shows who we are in Christ.
- It is an amazingly beautiful picture.
- After showing us the reality of who we are and the spiritual blessings that are ours in Jesus, he pulls out an old photo, one bearing the image of who we were before Christ and what we would be apart from Christ and it is shockingly and as frighteningly ugly as the other picture is beautiful.
These are two pictures that we should never forget. Paul is saying, ''This is who you are. This is who you wer ...
Series: Ephesians
Robert Dawson
Ephesians 2:1-10
When Kristal and I lived in Creedmoor NC, the place where I had my haircut always had magazines and books lying around with the latest hair-styles and fashions in them. Sometimes they had pictures of a style makeover in them. They would have a before and an after picture.
- The before picture was usually some scruffy, geeky and unkempt looking guy and in the next picture you'd have to do a double-take to see if it was the same dude because now he looked like a model or a movie-star. (My stylist never managed to pull that off!)
- Or, you would have a picture of a rather dowdy plain-Jane looking lady who wouldn't grab anybody's attention and in the next she's suddenly competing for the title of Mrs. America.
The transformation was astounding. Comparing the two pictures, one thing you knew, they did not go to bed looking like that (scruffy, unkempt, dowdy, geeky or plain) and wake up looking like they belonged on the cover of GQ or Vogue. There had to be a reason. Something happened between picture one and picture two; a radical transformation occurred.
In the first two chapters of Ephesians Paul provides the church, believers, with two spiritual pictures of themselves, a before and after. Paul, rather than starting with the before, starts with the after.
He is intent on imprinting our identity in Christ on our hearts and minds.
- That after picture, the picture of our current spiritual state, shows who we are in Christ.
- It is an amazingly beautiful picture.
- After showing us the reality of who we are and the spiritual blessings that are ours in Jesus, he pulls out an old photo, one bearing the image of who we were before Christ and what we would be apart from Christ and it is shockingly and as frighteningly ugly as the other picture is beautiful.
These are two pictures that we should never forget. Paul is saying, ''This is who you are. This is who you wer ...
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