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all looks the same. Will it be a fish? Will it be a bird? Will it
be a man or a woman created in the image of God? At first sit
all looks the same. But the seed will produce the life of the
parent. The seed is parent and it will produce itself.
If it is bird protoplasm it will grow feathers and a beak.
If it’s a fish protoplasm it will have scales and a tail. If it’s a
reptile protoplasm it is going to produce a snake or a turtle. At
the beginning you don’t know if it’s a worm, an elephant or a
man.
Listen again to 1 John 3:9, “No one who is born of God
practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin,
because he is born of God.” God has planted His seed in your
life. That’s the guarantee that you are going to be like Jesus.
You can’t avoid it. You might revel along the way but His seed
is in you. The seed will produce after its kind. That’s why I
want to start there. That’s the guarantee that someday you will
be like Jesus. That should take the burden off your shoulders.
That should take away the discouragement that says, “I don’t
think I’ll ever arrive.” You are going to arrive. His seed is in
you. His life is in you. He has stamped His image in you and
there will be a day when you will be like Jesus. That’s the
beginning; but what is the process? I want us to look at the
process.
Once again there is a Bible illustration in 2 Corinthians
3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” James
1:23-25, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,
he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for
once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has
immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one
who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and
abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an
effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.”
God’s illustration is a mirror. The Bible is called “a
mirror”. It’s a wonderful illustration of the process of becoming
like Jesus. In the New Testament the mirror was highly
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