“I plead with you friends, since you are immersed with the knowledge and amazed at the reality of God’s mercy, to offer your total being (thought life, self doubt, fears, guilt, shame, pride, arrogance, bitterness, etc.) as a living sacrifice (dying to your selfishness and old ways) knowing that you are holy and pleasing to God because of His finished work on the Cross. Quite frankly this is the only logical response to the message of the Gospel. Stop being shaped (conformed) by the world and its rules, lusts, desires, passions and mindsets, but instead be transformed (metamorphosed) by allowing your mind to be renewed by the truth of who God is and who you are in Him.” (Ro. 12:1-2)
Paul tells us that there are only two ways you can live – Conformed or Transformed. Those of us who choose to live conformed to this world determine either consciously or unconsciously to abide by the patterns of human existence that have grown out of the seeds from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Conformed people are at their core driven by the desire to define, distinguish and do good. The problem is that each of these endeavors is fatally flawed by the one thing we all have in common. All of us, conformed or transformed, share an underlying foundational trait. We are self focused.
Good and Evil
In the conformed world good and evil are relative terms. We treat others in ways we would never accept in return. But when we do it we justify it so that we can call it good. We vote for bills that we haven’t read in order to get re-elected; we believe good stories about people whom we like and bad stories about people whom we dislike. We pass on gossip and slander without any regard for whether we know anything about the veracity of the information. We cheat on our friends and spouses and excuse it in ourselves because we’re not to blame. We push people out of our way because that’s how we show everyone just how important we are. We use people for our pleasure and our gain. We lie because our reputation is more important than the truth.
You see, good is what I need it to be because I have to be in control of my universe. I focus on doing good only because it either protects me from punishment or earns me a reward. Good is anything that makes me look good, feel good, or gets me compliments and acclaim from others. Evil is anything that doesn’t. It is good when I love others as long as when I love others I get the credit for it and my reputation is enhanced. And finally I can unequivocally tell everyone else in my universe what they must do to be good.
Consumer Relationships
In a conformed world all relationships including family are consumer relationships. A consumer relationship is a relationship in which we stay as long as the other person meets my expectations at an acceptable price. If the other person falls short of my expectations or raises the price I am no longer bound and I move on. Even if the other party meets my expectations and doesn’t raise the price I may move on if someone else does the same at a lower price or does more for the same price.
Of course, in a conformed world everything is about me. I must look good, feel good and be praised. Everyone has to get a trophy because it’s all about each of us individually. The good we do, we do to in order to look good, feel good or to get praised. No one has the right to tell me what good is for me because no one knows what I have been through. But I can tell you what good is because good is an absolute in your life because good is anything that makes me look or feel good or gets me praise or acclaim. If I make sure that you follow God’s rules than I will be commended by God which makes it good. It’s really all about me.
Two Problems
Those of us who are being transformed (metamorphosed) still have at least two problems. One, prior to the process of metamorphosis beginning in our lives we lived conformed to this world and were very comfortable being the master of our universe. Two, after the process of metamorphosis has begun in our lives, we retain vivid memories of the the pleasures and habits of conformity. Because of these two problems, even as we are being transformed, we easily fall back into the habits of conformity.
The Caterpillar and the Butterfly
What is metamorphosis? What does it mean to be transformed? Nature gives us a wonderful example. Caterpillars are born as veracious eaters, totally self focused, destroying everything around them if necessary. They will even consume the very leaf that is sustaining them. Then at a predetermined time in their life cycle they attach themselves to a leaf and hang upside down and die to their “caterpillarness” and become a cocoon and then a butterfly.
Once the former caterpillar falls from the leaf he has been totally transformed (he has taken on a new nature). Now he must live in his new state, using his wings to fly from plant to plant receiving and delivering new life at each stop. If a butterfly were to try to live like a caterpillar his new nature would get in the way. His wings would bump into everything as he tried to crawl along the ground and his digestive system, which is now designed to drink in liquid life, would explode from the selfish gluttony of his former eating style. And the butterfly acting like a caterpillar would never spread the nectar of new life to the plants in his world.
Something in Between
Yet many Christians live like a butterfly trying to still be a caterpillar. A transformed believer has taken on a new nature and stands on the truth of the Gospel. Paul tells us that the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed is “Christ in you, the Hope of glory.” A transformed believer has been qualified by God, delivered out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light in Jesus and been made holy and pleasing to God. Still, many Christians live as though God is angry with them, standing over them with a stick, trying to catch them in what they consider sin. (Doing something evil) Because they live in fear of God, they never flap their wings and they believe they are God’s policemen, always gossiping about people’s behavior and telling everyone how to live.
When a transformed person continues to focus on their own actions or the actions of others, they are living as a conformed person and they are grieving the Holy Spirit. They look as foolish as a butterfly trying to live like a caterpillar. There is no fruit in their life because you need to spread your wings in order to fly from flower to flower. There is no aroma of God in their life because they are miserable and they make everyone around them miserable. They continue to judge themselves and everyone else by their relative scale of good and evil, while trying to earn God’s favor in their own strength and to their own glory. Christians who live conformed lives spit in God’s face because they refuse to truly accept His free and completed work of reconciliation and justification.
The Power of the Old Nature
Some butterflies continue to live like caterpillars because they haven’t yet tasted the nectar of the truth and are still chasing the counterfeit sweetness of their former lusts. They refuse to flap their wings because they are afraid of losing control and are so conformed in their thinking that they are only comfortable crawling in the grass and hiding in the darkness.
Truly Transformed
A truly transformed person has been given a new mind, and has surrendered his heart to the truth and hope of the Gospel. They understand that God is God and they are not. They know that God is holy and in and of themselves they are not and will never be. But they also know that because of God’s free gift of reconciliation and justification through His Son Jesus Christ, they have been made holy and pleasing in God’s sight. They also know that they have been made children of God who have the family connection required to call God, “Daddy.” And finally they know that they are joint heirs with Jesus of all that is God’s.
Do you see how different a transformed believer is when compared to a conformed person? Do you see how love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (the fruit of the Spirit) naturally grow in a transformed heart and are spread abroad by transformed hearts? Living a transformed life is living with a new mind – a mind focused on God and who we are in Him. We have hope in every situation because we are children of God. We are at peace because we have peace with God and if God is for us who can be against us. And we love because we are loved – unconditionally because God sees us in Him. We can love others because we can choose to see them as God sees them. Everyone is created in the image of God and we can forgive them because they know not what they do. Some of them are living conformed lives and are in bondage to selfishness. Others are living transformed lives and they are spreading life everywhere they go. Being in the presence of a transformed life is to be in the presence of God.
The Return to the Garden
The whole creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. By offering ourselves to God as living sacrifices, knowing that we are holy and pleasing to God, we set in place the altar for the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. As we focus on God and who we are in Him, we return to the mindset of the garden before the knowledge of good and evil. And in our renewed mind we are transformed into and revealed as the children of God.
