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When I was a kid - long ago - my parents bought a new microwave. It was a wonderful thing - the answer to all of our prayers of proper popped pop corn and TV dinners cooked wonderfully. It had one of those sensor cooking buttons; only requiring you to just put in food you wanted to reheat - hit that button.. and it did the rest. It was awesome.
As the years waned on the plastic over the buttons began to wear. It was crazy and I remember thinking .. really how could this be happening to a quality microwave... why would they put crappy plastic on the buttons? almost the ONLY place touched by a person.
It was that way for years.. A change finally happened.. for me it was three moves in the past (sort of.. not counting college) while I was still staying with my parents during college breaks. I came home one weekend to find the plastic on the microwave looked perfectly fine. Honestly, I thought they must have gotten tired of it tearing apart over the years and just bought a new one.
I asked someone.. my mother or one of my brothers .. I do not really remember.. and it is not important, but their answer was the microwave was not new... it was the same one. The only difference to it was some one actually pulled off the plastic. I was confused and asked if they redid the plastic to keep the buttons protected.. the truth was, no.. they didn't - there was no need. The actual plastic the microwave makers intended for us to touch was the one we had 'broken into' through the FACTORY wrapped plastic adhered to the buttons.
No one noticed the plastic we thought was being destroyed and torn to pieces, making our microwave look like a piece of junk, was never intended to stay there anyway. It was to be removed right as you pulled it out of its nice box. I know it made me feel foolish, but not until recently did I really see the lesson in it.
Being "New" has more to do with perception, then 'truth'. When we accept Christ, much like explained to Nicodemus, we are born again. We are new creations - Romans covers this greatly. But what we may fail to realize is we have a protective covering. We may make mistakes and ultimately we may sin even though we are new. The great thing is instead of using those discouraging times to decide to give up because it is too hard - we can instead move on and do as commanded to the lame man, "pick up your mat and sin no more".
Do you feel dirty, do you feel you have done too much wrong recently? When you get back to God, it is likely no matter the destruction you seem to have upon you for your mistakes in striving to be as Christ, He will just reach out and peel off the 'protective coating' - revealing His son again.
Best Scriptural Backing for this...
Philippians 3:10-14 (Full Chapter)
Amplified Bible (AMP)
[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]
That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].
Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.
I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
Have you ever, even now, felt 'unworthy' to go to church, or to help someone else because of your mistakes and failings?
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