You Are Authentic
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
When Christian Nicolai Mustad showed his Van Gogh landscape to art collector Auguste Pellerin, Pellerin took one look and said it wasn’t authentic. Mustad disappointed banished the painting to his attic, where it remained for 50 years. Mustad died in 1970, and the painting was evaluated off and on over the next four decades. Each time it was determined to be a fake, until 2012, when an expert used a computer to count the thread separations in the painting’s canvas. He discovered it had been cut from the same canvas as another work of Van Gogh. Mustad had owned a real Van Gogh all along.
Do you feel like a fake? Do you fear that if people examined you, they’d see how little you pray, give, and serve? Are you tempted to hide in the attic, away from prying eyes?
Look deeper, beneath the colours and contours of your life. If you have turned from your own ways and put your faith in Jesus Christ, then you and He belong to the same canvas. You are original, a new creature.
To use Jesus’ picture, “I am the vine; you are the branches” John 15:5. Christ and you form a seamless whole.
Resting in Jesus makes you a true disciple of His. It’s also the only way to improve your picture. He said, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”
“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” 2 Corinthians 5:16