Philippians 3:20-21
For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:  Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

Jesus is going to change our bodies to be like His glorified body.  We will be different in heaven than we are right now.  That is what we are ultimately striving for.  Our real life is the one beyond this one.  But though Jesus will change us so ultimately and completely in the future, He begins even now to change us from something vile to something glorious.  We once were sinners, but He changed us into something so completely different the moment we first trusted in Him.

We often think on a much lower level than God does.  We might think it is enough if His forgiveness afforded us merely an avoidance of a penalty or some small benefit.  But He goes so much beyond that in what He does in sanctifying us and making us new.  We become the very children of God, the brethren of Christ, and we are called redeemed.  Besides avoiding hell, we gain heaven.  Besides avoiding death, we gain eternal life, which will be much richer than we could ever imagine it to be.  Much more than conquering the power of sin, we gain Christ Himself.

So let us allow God to start the process now, making us new and making us better than we were before we knew Him.  Let us allow the Master’s hands to mold us and work in us to become something more than the fleshly and corruptible that we so often cling to, something a little more heavenly and fit for our home there and our service here.

Christ Himself is the evidence of what He can do for us.  He went to the grave with a mangled, bloody, and broken body, but He arose with a glorified body of holy perfection.  And He takes us, mangled, bloodied, and broken by sin, and fashions us like Himself.  He works in us to conform us to His image, to make us more like Him in every part of us.  So may we seek to please Him, to follow His example, and may we be willing to submit to His work in us and trust His power to change us so completely.