Can We Shed More Than Our Skin?

I found an unwelcome surprise outside my front door again.

Another two-foot-long snake skin. It wasn’t the first, and I doubt it will be the last.

Not an appealing sight. And of course, now I’m wondering where the creature is that shed the skin and left it there for me to find.

What if you and I could shed our skin? After all, the beauty industry has been offering chemical facial peel products for years to help us “shed” our skin.

But what if we took that wish further? What if our shedding didn’t stop with some microscopic surface skin cells? What if we could shed more than our skin?

The Act of Putting Off

The Bible tells us, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV).

But it’s not an easy process, is it? That “old self” doesn’t go willingly. And it’s certainly not something we can simply wriggle out of. No, the old self clutches us in a death grip (literally!), refusing to go without a fight. Regardless of how hard we try and no matter how determined we are to “put on the new self,” we fail.

Our failures are a testimony to the truth that if we were able to shed our old nature in our own strength, we wouldn’t need a Savior. We wouldn’t need Jesus.

I’m reminded of a passage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Book 3 in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Eustace, a boy enchanted into a dragon, recounts how he was changed back into a boy:

“I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off . . . . and instead of just scales coming off here and there my whole skin started peeling off beautifully . . . . I looked down and saw that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before . . . So I scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully . . . . and exactly the same thing happened again . . . . so I scratched away for a third time . . . . but I knew it had been no good.”

Eustace learned the hard way that he could not change himself. He had to allow the lion, Aslan, to do it for him:

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off . . . . and there was I as soft and smooth as a peeled switch . . . . I’d turned into a boy again.”

Allowing God to Do What We Can’t

The change in you and me comes through surrender. It occurs when we submit to God’s Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out as a result of the salvation found in Jesus Christ. Only He, the “Lion of Judah,” can peel away our old self to reveal the new nature He gives us.

Like Eustace, are you tired of trying to change and repeatedly failing? Are you frustrated with new year’s resolutions that don’t last past February? Will you allow God to do in you what you cannot do for yourself?

A snake can shed its skin, but not change its nature. We, on the other hand, cannot shed our skin, but at God’s doing, our nature can be changed. Not to merely become a better version of ourselves, but to become a new creation.

Because Christ shed His blood for us, we can say yes to the shedding only God can initiate and complete in you and me!