New life.....even if it doesn't look like it ;)

in my last blog post i mentioned the study called Truefaced that LAUNCH is going through right now. i just read something from it last night that gave me hope and really made me want to share it with anyone who might happen to think that reading this could be worthwhile.
"if we brought a caterpillar to a biologist and asked him to analyze it and describe it's DNA he would say, "i know that this looks like a caterpillar to you, but scientifically, according to every test, including DNA, this is fully and completely a butterfly." God has wired into a creature that looks nothing like a butterfly, a perfectly complete butterfly "identity". and because the caterpillar is a butterfly in essence, it will one day display the behavior and attributes of a butterfly. the caterpillar matures into what is already true about it." (TrueFaced p. 47-48)
when i read this the other night, my heart nearly sang to realize that promise from God. now i do have to confess that that came from last week's assigned reading, but i didn't get to it until this week. however, i think that the important thing is that i read it! i also have a little story from today about how that example from nature is coming true in my life!
at the beginning of the year we took some spiritual gifts tests, just to find out about ourselves. so i took them and had my suspicions confirmed that my strongest spiritual gift is service or helps. but what i wasn't expecting was my secondary or weaker gifts being discernment, comforting, and most surprising, prophecy, or speaking truth into a situation. well at the time i agreed with the discernment, and maybe the comforting, but probably not the prophecy because i just do not really like talking all that much in front of other people, let alone saying something that could be controversial. well, today in class we were going through some behavior examples about the way that some people are, and we were sharing about what sort of person we thought we were. i was sitting by quietly, letting everyone else answer the question as i usually do, and i heard someone answer the question, but they're assessment of themself was way off from what i had observed of that person so far in our five months of being here at camp.  and all of a sudden i could not keep my mouth shut, and i informed that person that they were not what they thought they were. now, let me be honest, i did not do it in the most gracious way, and i'm sorry for that, but it was also my first time really doing something like that, and i could use a little practice. but i guess that i really do have the gift of speaking truth into a situation. it just hadn't shown itself yet. that doesn't mean that i wasn't gifted in prophecy, it was just that i hadn't had it manifested in my life yet.
it's the same way with a christian's new life in Jesus Christ. after Jesus has saved, we might still look like a non christian or act like a non christian or even smell like a non christian (just kidding, everybody has their own smell regardless of whether they're saved or not). but all of that does not mean that you are not a Christian. if you still struggle with sin even when you're supposed to be a Christian and reflecting the image of Jesus, that doesn't mean that you are a hopeless cause. you are saved, and God sees you as a reflection of His Holy Son. that is who we really are, not what we look like on the outside, but what God says we are on the inside. and one day, someday in the distant future, we'll finally actually reflect our Lord and Savior on the outside just like God says we do!