work in process

Martin Luther said this in defense of all his articles . . .

‘This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.
We are not what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.

The process is not yet finished but it is going on.

This is not the end but it is the road.
All does not gleam in glory but all is being purified.’

I love the reminder that we are all in process. Not even really progress but process. We seem to get so caught up in progressing and somehow thinking that we will attain it in this lifetime.

Yet as image-bearers of Christ, the point that Luther makes is that is a process, only Christ will complete and finish the work began in us. And I am comforted because sometimes it doesn't seem like I am getting anywhere and I am so far from being like Christ but it is about being on the right road, in being purified, in becoming, not about attaining righteousness, wealth, health, or even glory.

Read it again slowly- my favourite is that line that says not health but healing.

The point is:
Christ is in us, at work, transforming us, by the same power he saves us by!