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Recently, as I was talking with some people about my attempt to lose some weight, someone, nudging a look at me said "I don't see any difference" (meaning, I assume, that they do not see any weight loss happening).

At first, I was taken a back. Secondly, I caulked it up to this person's "honest personality." Thirdly, I had to agree with this person: it has only been 2 weeks and the goal is only to lose a pound or 2 a week. So not much weight loss has happened thus far.

And then I thought that this is (again) much like the Christian life. We are following Jesus, we are praying, we are reading the Word, we are trying to love God and others. And I am sure that others, when they look at us, say: "I don't see any difference." The difference is so incremental, so small. Oftentimes we need the eyes of faith to see the difference.

But difference is happening. Whether a pound a week or a God is at work in us, changing us from the inside out. A the Bible says:

"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:4-6).

"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).

Maybe over a week or a month or a year, there seems to be no difference. But over a lifetime, there will be a difference. And then, one day, into eternal life, people will see a very noticeable difference: a whole new person alive in a whole new creation! And as we wait for that day that will mark the biggest difference and change we say: "Maranatha! Come quickly Lord!"