New — really new — Life

 

 

Biology class teaches us about metamorphosis using a butterfly as the major example. This insect and other life forms “physically develop after birth or hatching in various phases that involve a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in their body structure through cell growth and differentiation.”

The OT word for “turn” is also used for “transform” because God has the power to transform things from one reality to another. For example, He turns night into day and day into night, a rock into a spring of water, the sea into dry land, and rivers into blood. (Psalm 78:44, “He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams.”)

Dramatic as those events might be, the NT version is even more so. There “metamorphoo” is used to describe the process which God changes the life of a person of faith. He says:

2 Corinthians 3:18. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

This new life begins with a change of heart. Instead of delighting in doing my own thing, God enlightened me to realize that doing my own thing is the realm of sin. He gave me the life of Christ and with that, the mind of Christ with His regard and opinion of sinful things. He also gave me a new attitude toward Him and toward others. I was so aware of that change that I can still remember sitting in the sunshine on my front step glorying in it — more than fifty years ago.

As the above verses say, this transformation happens through seeing the glory of the Lord. It is not by anything that I can do. In myself, I did not seek God, nor was I interested. However, when ‘my way’ started making a mess of things, God had my attention. When He came to me with light and understanding of who Jesus is and what I needed, I was ready to hear it, but the transformation was all His doing.

After that change, I realized that my old nature, even though dead and separated from God, was still hanging around. Like the butterfly must struggle to get out of the casing in which it lived and became changed, I too was aware that this new life involved a battle . . .

Romans 12:1–3. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

This new life needs to be presented to the Lord constantly. Old habits die hard. Butterflies must learn to fly. The change is there — it needs to be lived. This requires new input to push out the old. Mind renewal, not the same as brainwashing (I had been brainwashed by sin) but deliberately seeking the will of God instead of automatically doing my own thing. It is a process made possible by becoming a new creation and by diligent determination in the power of the Holy Spirit to live like a new creation.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Oh my, what a wonder that God gives eyes to see Him and the transforming power to change me into what He shows me. This is not legalistically following a fixed set of rules and regulations, but a desire to serve Jesus with all my heart and mind, to glorify Him and to heed the will of God in every area of thought, word, and deed. His goal for me is to set my eyes on Jesus and become like Him. How utterly amazing!