Remember Eustace?

What Eustace gets right is that he needs to be transformed. The truest thing about him is that he is a boy trapped inside a dragon, and so his scales must be removed. What Eustace gets wrong, however, is the method. He sinks his own claws into his own scales, hoping to remove them and reveal the boy beneath. It’s self-surgery, and it fails.

Just as it does when we try it.

Transformation doesn’t begin with cleaning up and getting our acts together. It begins with meeting Jesus. When we do that, we are identified with Jesus and given new identities—identities based on His righteousness and standing with God.

And that is how we become who we are. Not by our own effort or achievement, but by virtue of our being hidden in Christ. When Christ is our life, then we—just like Christ—are God’s beloved.— The Truest Thing about You, chapter 6

<idle musing>
Amen and amen! Good preaching! Self improvement can never remake us—and that's what we need—only God in Christ through the Holy Spirit can do that. We need to become who we are as we release ourselves to him.
</idle musing>