Old skin.

Am I the same person I was 5 years ago? 2 years ago? 3 months ago?

My answer: I hope not.

13 years ago, the Holy Spirit pierced my black heart for the first time: I believed. I repented, pleading God's mercy and forgiveness. Immediately, He washed me in the pure flood of His Son's blood. I became a new creation. Leaving the old skin behind, I was robed in Christ's righteousness.

But I was still very much human.

In the moment of becoming a new creation, I didn't become a saint.

With Christ inside me, my heart was now a battle-ground of war between the flesh and the Spirit. The old and the new. The human and the holy.

As I ask myself if I'm the same person I once was, my desire is that I can honestly answer no.

Because, I believe God desires us to become new creations every day. He wants us me to shed the old skin with each morning. He desires me to become less of myself, so that He might fill me more fully. He desires His spirit to grow so huge and all-encompassing that the fibres of my wicked nature burst apart. He wants me to daily walk away from my old skin; the carcass of my self.

Like a spider who out-grows his skin, God's spirit inside me needs to out-grow my fleshly desires and wants.
I believe every day, I need to let this shell of myself die, so that Christ Jesus in me, may fully live.

It's a constant war inside of me. My old self raises its ugly, leering head, desperately trying to live. The hardest battles fought, are the ones we can't see. In the midst of the 'everday' can be the hardest time to put to death the 'flesh' inside of me.

Only, with God's strength and mercy can I learn to daily cast off this old skin, so that I can live fully alive in Him!