This week I want to post some quotes from the book Plan B: What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up In The Way You Thought He Would? by Pete Wilson.
You can read my full review of the book at Thinking Out Loud.
Someone once said, “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” Unfortunately, more often than I like to admit, I have found this to be true. And I cringe when I look back on how I’ve acted during times when it felt as if God was not there and the bottom was dropping out.
As a younger person, I frequently traveled to those large summer outdoor youth festivals which, for some reason, seemed to all take place in Pennsylvania. I remember one of the speakers talking about II Cor. 5:17
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. (NASB)
What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! (NLT)
The speaker said that most people think of “becoming a new creature” as referring to something like the proverbial caterpillar who becomes a butterfly; but it’s not talking about that kind of metamorphosis.
Rather, he said, the Greek means that “anyone in Christ” is actually “a species of being that never existed before;” adding “More like a winged elephant than a winged butterfly.”
I’ve never seen a winged elephant, though in the early days of Microsoft, I saw some flying toasters.
The thing about a flying elephant is this: It gets peoples’ attention. If anyone is in Christ, the world is going to notice the change.
Christianity 201 