TEXT: Galatians 4:19

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”

This is amazing but true. No man has ever physically seen his face. All you ever saw and know as your face is a reflection of it in a mirror or glass. 
Through knowledge you have come to recognize it as your face and could easily identify it on any post card, wall painting and even a cartoon.
Ladies spend longer moments before a mirror everyday. They remember exactly what make-up or hairstyle they wore. You couldn’t play a prank easily on a lady as you would a man regarding their looks.

It’s the same with forming the glorious image of Christ inside your heart. You behold his image in the Gospel you received and you stick to that image until the ‘Daystar’ arise in your heart.

2 Peter 1 :19
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:”

Take note of the word “travail ” in our text above. Paul laboured and toiled so much in hope that Christ be formed in his disciples. 

Why?
First, forming Christ’s image is a tough process. You have your daily circumstances constantly painting another image contrary to the Word of God. Cable News,  TV and even people around keep assaulting your heart and mind with wrong imaginations. No wonder the Bible enjoined the Church to cast down such images and bring them captive to the obedience of Christ.
 ( 2 Cor 10 : 5 )

Secondly, Paul knew that once the image of Christ is successfully formed, the Believer can endure in the faith.

James 1 : 23 – 25 

“For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.  
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

Abraham accounted that God was able to raise Isaac back from the dead because of the image of God he already formed.

What image of Christ are  you carrying inside of you?  Is it of the glorified Christ? 

CONCLUSION :
” But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”.
2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV

-Dr Nich Mbaezue-Daniel