By Debra Franklin-Rothrock
Jeremiah 12:1-14:10/1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:8/Psalm 79:1-13/Proverbs 24:30-34
Can a leopard change his spots? The rhetorical inference by God is a resounding: “NO.”
In today’s reading of Jeremiah God puts it this way:
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good
who are accustomed to do evil?”[1]
Our reading makes it clear that we can’t change on our own. Jesus backs up the fact of our personal incapacity when He pointedly says in John 8:34, “When you sin you are not free. You’ve become a slave in bondage to your sin.” [2]
Yuck! That leaves me in a pickle. I am tempted to and do sin. At times it seems I cannot help myself! I certainly do not want to sin, let alone be a slave to it.
It is a dilemma. I regularly stumble. In the Sermon on the Mount[3] Jesus raises the bar on what sin looks like by interpreting it through the spirit of the law.
By his standards, I stand utterly and completely condemned. According to Jesus, if I am even angry I will be liable for judgment. If I insult someone or call them a name, I am in danger of hellfire!
As a further example, John writes: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.”[4] When someone hurts or intentionally injures me, hating them comes as naturally as breathing does. Icannot make it on my own.
I find myself identifying with Paul when he says, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” [5]
God’s answer is Jesus! We know, that Jesus is not only the one with the higher standards. He is also the one with the higher covenant: a covenant of grace, not law. As Paul continues the above statement he writes, “I give all my thanks to God, for his mighty power has finally provided a way out through our Lord Jesus”[6]
Yes, Jesus paid the price for my sin through his sacrificial death. When I place my trust in Him, my old self, the sinful one, dies. I am born into a new spiritual life.
My spots are removed! And He makes me a new creature in him.[7] I am part of His church, His bride! I am spotless and without blemish.[8]
Along with Paul, I can say, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”[9]
Christ’s mind, the Holy Spirit, and God’s resurrection power abide in His followers.
By this resurrection-new-creation power, the Thessalonian changed! Today’s reading of 1 Thessalonians 1:9 confirms this: “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead…”
That’s right, the Thessalonians changed their spots!
Paul tells them: “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord.”[10] Slaves to sin cannot, within and of themselves, imitate Christ: they become new people.
The Thessalonians changed and so can we! Once we surrender ourselves to the one and only savior, Jesus, the old things pass away and the new things come. The spots are gone.
[1] Jeremiah 13:23, The English Standard Version, (ESV)
[2] The Passion Translation, (TPT)
[3] Matthew 5-7
[4] 1 John 3:15
[5] Romans 7:23-24, (ESV)
[6] Romans 7:25, TPT
[7] Corinthians 5:17
[8] Ephesians 5:27
[9] Galatians 5:20 (ESV)
[10] 1 Thessalonians 1:6 (ESV)
