Preparation perfects painting. Ask any painter and they’ll tell you that the secret to a beautiful paint job is a painful sandpaper job. Amateurs like me want to get straight to the painting with minimal preparation, and the poor results are obvious to anyone. I’ve learned the hard way that preparation perfects painting.
The same goes when God starts a makeover in our lives. He doesn’t just come and slap some beautiful paint on us. He starts by scraping our old flaking paint off. He sands with some sandpaper. Sometimes it’s a fine and light sandpaper, other times it’s rough and coarse. Although we may not understand or appreciate it at the time, he knows what he’s doing. He knows that just as preparation perfects painting, so scraping smooths salvation. How does our heavenly painter prepare for our perfection? John 1:19-28 takes us inside our heavenly painter’s workshop.