Thigh crepes and Jesus.

I was putting lotion on my legs last week and noticed how the skin on my legs isn't quite as firm as it used to be. It’s the effects of being 44 and my decades of sun "worship" exposure. The first indication of this problem came just a few years ago near my 41st birthday. I was standing on a pickleball court, wearing shorts, when I looked down and noticed that my knee's looked slightly sad and appeared to be frowning. My knee skin suddenly appeared to hang like drapery over my kneecaps. I had never noticed that my knee’s had depression before that moment. Fast forward to this year at age 44, I began to notice an undesirable and unwelcomed crepe like appearance on what used to be my unyielding taut thigh skin. In other words, my formerly “nice looking legs”. While I was slathering up my crepes with lotion, I started to consider the effects the sun has had on my flesh. We all recognize and know the sun is bad for our skin (unless somehow you've been living under a rock....which....in that case you wouldn't have a need to fret over thigh crepes and sad frowning knee's). I began considering the effects of the sun on my flesh and decided to take these thoughts and filter them through what I’ve learned through the Word of God. I've always considered the obvious analogy between the sun in the sky and the Son of God. How can we not? Both bring light to the entire world. Both have radiance/glory. Everything revolves around them. Life is simply impossible without them as they both bring sustenance to living things. Both are a consuming fire. Both expose darkness. Both act as a disinfectant. The list goes on. The walk to follow Christ requires a continuous crucification of our flesh. The more we learn about and trust Christ, the more willing we are to die to our flesh. We trust our flesh less and Jesus more. Biblically, flesh represents our sinful nature and desires. Consider the following from Gods Word: Galatians 5:16- 5:24 "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” So to follow and obey Christ is to continuously destroy our flesh. It’s a process called sanctification. “”Sanctify them in the truth, your Word is truth”- John 17:17. We are dying to our flesh and growing in Holy Spirit maturity. As we mature in The Spirit, the fleshly sinful desires weaken and die. As much as I wished that my own sanctification could have been an overnight process, it wasn’t, and continues to be a lifelong process for me. Has it gotten easier? By all means, yes! The fleshly sins I struggled with in my first five years of this walk are not even close to the struggles I have today. And the struggles I have today should pale in comparison to the sinful struggles I’ll have five years from now. There should always marked progress. On and on this sanctification will go until I physically die and my sinful flesh and desires are forever put to death. So those sad knees and wrinkled thighs? They are a natural sign that God is at work in my life! And that’s not so sad after all. Then I considered how the same sun that ages and destroys our flesh is also a HUGE benefit to our immune system giving us the ability to fight off illness and disease that can end our lives. The Sun energizes T-cells which play a central role in human immunity. Catching rays from the sun is the number one way our bodies naturally manufacture Vitamin D, the essential vitamin in a healthy internal immune system and mood lifter! While this benefit may help us ward off infections and disease in the temporal, eventually the flesh will still die. But for the believer, this won’t be the end. Jesus IS our immunity. Jesus, the son of God is the ultimate immunity. Can we please just consider the definition of immunity for a minute here? Immunity: protection or exemption from something, especially an obligation or penalty. Example: "the rebels were given immunity from prosecution" When we die In Christ, we get the ultimate immunity. We escape the deserved punishment for our sin. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. We walk away with life. We walk away in new skin. He’s making all things new….even my legs 😊 How anyone can consider all these things and NOT be in absolute AWE of the Lord completely befuddles my mind. HE is as obvious as the SUN in the sky. He is BRILLIANT beyond compare. Who is like Him? What could you possibly be waiting for??!!! Today is a good day to follow Jesus. Get down on those sad knee’s and believe on Him today. You’ll never regret it. If the Wise men sought Him out from Babylon, what is your excuse?