Costumes, Pretend, and Jesus

I was talking past a display of costumes when a little girl grabbed a hat with a long braid attached to the back. She pulled it on her head.

"Daddy, who do I look like?" she asked.

"You look just the same," he replied and chuckled.

I partially understood his response. She, in fact, had two long braids of her own. It was a moment of pretend, though. It was a moment to be someone new, someone she perhaps admired and aspired to be (in this case, someone famous, although troubled).

When children pretend, they get to try on a new personality and a new reputation.

THAT is what I love about this time of year. It reminds me of how we all have the opportunity to be a new person with a new reputation in Jesus. It is not just dress up and pretend.

He offers us the real thing, the genuine opportunity to be born again.

And when we say, "Daddy, who do I look like?"...  the marvelous thing is that all He sees is the new person we have become.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  2 Corinthians 5:17  NLT