“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the self with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:24

My family moved back to my father’s childhood community after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. While he never shared this with me, I am sure he wanted us to be in the one place where he felt the comfort and love of community.

One Saturday, several years after he passed, I walked into the bank, I was picking up change for the business for whom I was working. The teller looked at me, looked away for a moment and then looked back and asked if I was Raymond’s boy. With a confused look I replied that I was. She smiled and said, “I thought so, you look just like the boy I knew.”

It’s kind of fun to hear that, to have someone tell you that you look like or talk like someone you love in your life. Imagine the power and the peace if we allowed ourselves to look like Jesus.  The good news is, when we give up, when we destroy, when we crucify our old self.  That self who gets angry, the one who experiences moments of hatred toward others, the one who thinks of self before neighbor, that one who is of this world.  When we get rid of all of that, we can then begin to know that new life and that new image.

And it is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit, but we must be willing to submit to that transformative power. Offering words of kindness rather than anger, forgiving instead of holding a grudge. Removing all signs of hate and loving our neighbor.

When we begin to turn loose of these things, these attitudes, these emotions, we begin to take off the old life and start to put on new life, new opportunity and a new image, the image of Jesus Christ and who knows, you might have someone ask, “Aren’t you one of His children.”

Prayer: “God you are my Shepherd, offer me courage today to turn loose of the one that I am in this world and become the one that I am supposed to be in you. Hold me firmly and guide me gently in your will and in your ways. Amen”