…about growing in grace

In a Lifetime (Sunday School) class I attended a while back, the lesson covered the three stages of salvation: 1) We have been saved, 2) We are being saved, and 3) We shall be saved.  These three stages can be equated to justification, sanctification and glorification.  I have always been just a bit confused about the sanctification stage.  I mean, Paul tells us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling in Philippians and in Colossians we are told to put off the old man and put on the new man.  That just sounds to me like I have to “work.”  The teacher explained it as us having to allow that which God placed in us at the new birth to come through to the outside.  He used the phrase “grow in grace and knowledge.”

As I ruminated about this concept, a picture began to form in my head.  Snakes and cicadas shed their skin as they grow.  There may be other creatures that do that but these are the two that came to mind.  As we grow in the attributes of God that were placed within our spirits at the new birth, the skin of the old man is shed.  Or, think of the caterpillar.  It starts out as a larva and, as it grows into the caterpillar, it sheds its old skin.  During the next phase of its life, it weaves a cocoon around itself and metamorphosis begins.  It then emerges as a butterfly!

Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed (become like everyone else) but to be transformed (metamorphose into something different).