There are times when the things of the past, our former ways, come to the surface of our ’new being created in the likeness of Christ’. And in repentance of this old nature, we feel the pain and sorrow grieving God for the choice we made. 1 Corinthians tells us sin/death will ’sting’.
Today, God’s living word began to stir in my heart, revealing attitudes and ways of a former self in need deliverance. I crawled to my knees in abandonment as His mighty hand held my heart. A Godly sorrow poured out the pain in many heavy tears as I renounced this ’old’ self. And as each teardrop fell, I felt a literal sting slide down my face containing carried pain and burdens I’ve been harboring. One after another, my sorrows streamed across my cheeks like the sting of salt on a wound.
Two days ago, I received a medical chemical peel on my face. The old calloused and conditioned skin is now dead and has mostly peeled off, revealing a newer, fresh, more pure and sensitive face. I heard God say this: “Those tears represent each burden and pain of an old nature. The sting of those sins are felt only to the new creation I have revealed.”
You see, a man stuck in his ways cannot feel the sting of death carried in his sin; he is conditioned and calloused to its ’pain’-just as the outer layer of my face had become conditioned for those salty tears. But when a new creation is revealed, the ’sting’ of an old nature can truly be felt.
“The newness” of Christ has covered me. God didn’t create us for the sting of death/sin. When we are renewed in Him and “put off the ways of our former self”, we become more sensitive to the ’sting’.
For me, I am reminded of this: In each of those tears I shed, there were burdens… and there was the salt. Jesus IS the Salt. And this much i know, though it stings in the moment, Salt heals like no other! Amen!
When the sun falls below the horizon, evidence of its work remains for some time. The skies continue to glow a bit longer after it is gone.
