Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The story is told of Michelangelo, the famous Italian sculptor, standing before a rejected block of marble that builders had cast aside. Staring intently at the block of marble, someone asked Michelangelo what he was looking at. “An angel,” he replied. What he had discovered in looking at the block of marble cast aside was what he could bring out with a mallet and chisel. To others, the block of marble was a rejected stone; to Michelangelo it became a masterpiece.

It would seem that when Jesus chose the twelve apostles, He was not looking as clearly at what they were but at what they could become. On the surface, these twelve men were Galilean fishermen, a zealot, a tax collector, and two brothers known as the “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:14-19). How could these men possibly be the future of the Kingdom of God to take a message of salvation to a lost world? Except for Judas, they became ambassadors of the good news of Jesus Christ to which later the apostle Paul would write, “Not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven” (Colossians 1:23). They became all that God wanted them to be because of God working through them.

It is easy to focus on who we are instead of what we can become. We are the rejected stone that God saw promise in. In the Garden of Eden, God saw the blessing of bringing salvation to the creation that had rebelled against Him. Through Jesus Christ, we are made whole in the “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Peter tells us we are an “elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). This is not because of who we are but what we have become in Jesus Christ.

Our lives are changed by the power of God working through our thoughts, speech, actions, and motives. This change is a metamorphosis of our character of sin to our realization of hope. What I can become with God’s help is only limited by what I desire Him to work in my life. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Allowing God to work in my life will bring about significant changes in every aspect of my character.

Many people who lived reprobate lives before obeying the gospel are changed beyond recognition because of what God has done in their lives. Consider the changes in Saul of Tarsus, who became (with God’s help) the apostle Paul (Philippians 3:4-6). If these changes can be made in Saul, what great wonders can happen in my life? “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him” (Romans 8:31,32). How wonderful the promise of God to give us all things in Christ. With God’s help, I can hear those precious words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter” (Matthew 25:21).