Dust...to Diamonds

Given the presence of carbon and vast amounts of time, extreme temperature (ranging between 1800 and 2400*F), and ear-popping pressure (650,000-850,000psi), the Earth will produce diamonds. This unique process makes diamonds a relatively rare and always valuable commodity.

It should surprise no one that God uses a similar process in bringing people with effective faith into a beautiful reflection of the image of our Saviour, The Lord Jesus Messiah; and yet, too often we miss what God is doing.

Dust to Diamonds.

Paul describes this process for us in his second letter to the church at Corinth..

7 We now .have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.12 So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, "I believed in God, so I spoke." 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

--2 Corinthians 4.7-18 NLT

Pressed on every side, perplexed, hunted, knocked-down, NOT crushed, NOT despairing, NOT abandoned, NOT destroyed. BUT suffering, sharing in the death of Jesus--for one glorious purpose: that the life of The Savior might be clearly seen in our bodies; IN us BY others.

Dust to Diamonds.

God uses hard places to fashion us into a new version of ourselves, still us, but transformed in ways that manifest His presence, His grace, His mercy. This is not what we will be, but we are sufficiently different in ways that produce confident expectation--hope. Look at how Paul describes it to the church in Rome, where he compares our struggle with the cataclysmic impact sin has had on the Earth; thus, all creation waits...

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don't need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

--Romans 8.18-25 NLT

Dust to diamonds.

What is responsible for this transformation and the hope it delivers? Paul clarifies this at the beginning of the eighth chapter of his letter to the Roman church...

There is, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

--Romans 8.1-4

Don't miss it...for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (humankind) and for sin (He absorbed the penalty for sin on His own body in our place), He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

Sin broke the planet.

God is in the process of restoring what He created. The tipping point of the restoration is the passion, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Messiah. We have been redeemed and restored positionally; now we are waiting--suffering still, but knowing that "it is finished." 

In that suffering, as we lean into our weakness, our fragility, there, at that moment, the Manifest Presence of God shines brightly through us and our suffering; for us, for a watching world to behold in wonder. His strength made manifest through our weakness. Indeed, "the wound is where the light shines through."

Dust to Diamonds.

Suffering is NOT payback. 
Suffering is NOT God's plan spinning out of control. 
Suffering IS the last dying gasp of sin--Check, NOT Check-Mate.
Suffering IS the process God has sovereignly allowed to transform our lives on this side of the veil, from...

...dust to diamonds.

We don't get to be here long.

Liveitwell!