My friend Doug McBride is an outstanding woodcarver. How one can take a small block of timber and transform it into a unique image and with such great expression, I cannot relate; I can only admire and appreciate. It takes vision, I’m sure, and time. Add to that, patience and perseverance and, from these come great pleasure and astounding workmanship. Then with each piece Doug finishes, his collection of characters grows, each with its own personality, just as he intends.
Did you know God likewise sees something in us “blocks of wood,” and that He also has a vision for what we can and will be? He does! In 1 Corinthians 15:42-53, Paul teaches believers about the new Christlike bodies that await us. Our natural bodies—broken, weak, and perishable—they will die. But all who live in Christ Jesus by faith in Him will be raised in glorious, strong, and spiritual bodies that will never die.1 “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man [Adam],” writes the apostle, “so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man [Jesus].”2 Paul’s eager anticipation shouts immutably through his pen: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”3 This will happen “in the twinkling of an eye.”4
Yet not all transformation happens instantaneously, nor is change limited to our bodies, for God works even now in our inmost being. Paul again: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”5 The passive voice, “we are being renewed,” tells us someone else is artfully working renewal within us, namely God. What will His masterpiece look like, what does He envision for us? He has chosen us “to become like his Son.”6 Each of us different, yet all of us like Jesus.
The prolific apostle marvels, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”7 Only God can envision our best, only He can plan it, and only He can produce His marvelous works from us blocks of wood. Both now and over time, both inside and out. Today and every today, may we entrust ourselves entirely to Him, our God, and His work in us, His people.
Father, your heart is good toward us, and your plans for us are perfect. Send your Spirit, that we will entrust ourselves completely to your vision for us and rest in what you are forming us to be. In Christ we pray. Amen.
1 1 Corinthians 15:42-44
2 1 Corinthians 15:49 NIV
3 1 Corinthians 15:52 NIV, emphasis added
4 1 Corinthians 15:52 NIV
5 2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
6 Romans 8:29 NLT
7 1 Corinthians 2:9 NLT
Paul Nordman—Author 