The gift of salvation is transformative – it makes “all things new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Yet this marvelous restoration of what God intended for us in the beginning, before sin entered the human heart, cannot be fully appreciated when it is first experienced because the new life within us is unimaginable to the natural mind.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, it is like hearing news from a country we have never visited.
Salvation must work its way fully into our consciousness before are we are able to fully enjoy its fruit and freely pass it on. The Apostle Peter likened this maturing process to being established and strengthened and settled in Christ (1 Peter 5:10).
Our spiritual growth adds power to pass the gift along because deeper submission to God causes us to become more like the gift. Then we share what we have received, not as something separate from us—something we merely possess—but as our very life—something we have become! It is the earthen vessel transformed by the inner treasure, emitting light that brings life and transformation to everything it touches, including givers who share the gift!