(everything I'm saying in this post comes from talks given by Greg Boone, Executive Director, Look Up Lodge,)
The word "transformed" is translated from "metamorphia." It is not overly dramatic for God to use the word metamorphosis. Metamorphosis refers to an inside change that results in an outside change. The outside change does not precede the inside change.
What we genuinely need from Jesus is the capacity to love people. Loving people is the test of where you are in the metamorphosis process. Loving people is not the end goal, it is just a test of where you are in the process of transformation. The end goal is the close relationship with God as Jesus had, where God genuinely is our ultimate desire in life.
God wants to give us this capacity to love people unselfishly. Almost every relationship we have in life is based on selfishness. What God wants to do is to change that. How in the world can we do that? There's only one way and it's the same way Jesus did it.
By finding our sole source of life and happiness in God alone.
"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."
Not "that they might be a good missionary" or "that they might be a good parent" or "that they might have a good church."
Just: "That they may know you, the only true God & Jesus Christ."
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"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
- Jeremiah 2:13
Two sins? Really, just two sins? Amazing how important this is. Everything has its roots back in this.
When we focus on God, sin begins to get squeezed out of our lives.
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If you're going to become this thing that God wants you to be, you are going to struggle in the metamorphosis process. Caterpillar to pupa to butterfly requires a serious struggle. Without the struggle, it just doesn't happen. This puts a different spin on pain and suffering, on teenage rebellion, marriage difficulties, and cancer and sickness.
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When you understand who God is and why He does what He does, you'll stop asking "Why?"
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The Answer: Trying to make you more like Jesus.
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1 comment:
Very well written! ... summed up the week nicely
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