Picture in your mind a field on a warm, sunny spring day. Notice the green grass waving in the breeze. Everything seems so fresh and new. The birds are singing as they feed their newly hatched young. And there, flitting among the flowers, is one of God’s most beautiful and delicate creatures, the Monarch butterfly. With perfectly formed orange and black wings, it effortlessly glides to each waiting flower. Surely this delicate creature deserves its title of Monarch.
But where did such unique beauty begin? Each butterfly started its life as a satiny, insignificant caterpillar. Through one of God’s many miracles in nature, that caterpillar formed a chrysalis, or cocoon, about itself and went through a major transformation. One day it emerged from the cocoon as a totally new creature—the Monarch butterfly. No longer bound to earth, it was free to soar through the air.
Man, too, can become a totally new creature. We can’t grow beautiful wings like the caterpillar, but we can be set free through Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, we read of a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus. One night he came to talk with Jesus in secret. At that time, he thought that Jesus was only a teacher of God’s Word. But he acknowledged Jesus’ power by saying that no man could do the miracles Jesus did, unless God was with him. Jesus told him that no man could see the Kingdom of God unless he was born again. That confused Nicodemus, and he asked Jesus how a person could be born twice. Could he become a baby again? Jesus explained that a man could be born again in his heart, not in body. He said, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Those words are still true today. In order for us to make Heaven our home we must be born again; we must have our heart cleansed and changed by Jesus.
God, through the chrysalis, made a way for the caterpillar to become a butterfly. He has also made a way for us to be changed through Jesus Christ and His Blood. In Romans 10:9 it says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” When we are saved, our hearts become brand-new. Instead of wanting to do bad things and disobeying God, we will want to please Him. We become “a new creature.” Romans 8:1 says: “There is therefore now no condemnation [guilt] to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
When we become new creatures in Christ, we are freed from the heavy load of guilt that we carried as sinners. In fact, with that load gone, some have said they felt as though they could fly. Like the caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly and is set free, so we are set free from the bonds of sin and become new creatures in Christ Jesus.
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