THE UNCHAINED SPIRIT
Read 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

We are all in the process of becoming. The great goal of Christian living is to become more and more conformed to Jesus, the epitome of humanity. And no matter how egocentric we might be tempted to be, none of us can state he or she has arrived at that exalted state. This might cause despondency, however such growth to maturity and wholeness is always gradual. In this passage, Paul tells us that the change is an ongoing process rather than a sudden event.

And the change is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who reminds us that we are free of the restrictions (or the "veil") when it comes to embracing and understanding Jesus. We don't have the dead hand of the law condemning us. Nor is God playing hide and seek with us. We can witness something of God's glory through the Scriptures, through Jesus. And as we do so, we are set free to be changed.

Sometimes the progress seems very slow. That can simply be a fact of life, or more seriously it may be because we have somehow imprisoned the Spirit of God in us. We have domesticated him, chained him up. He is no longer free to make holy havoc in our lives and so be the great agent of change. Squashing the Spirit spells stagnation. Set the Spirit free so he can free us to be the people God has made us to be. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. May the Spirit make us blessed becomers.