Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
I spent the early part of my Christian life trying to change and become Christ-like when in reality, I was changed the moment I was born again. At that moment I became a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). I received God’s DNA, but the problem was I didn’t look, and more importantly act, any different. I still had the same old thoughts and feelings I always had so naturally I assumed something was wrong with me and I kept trying to change, to no avail. I was frustrated because deep down inside I knew I was not the same person.
Paul raised a question that gave me insight into becoming Christ-like. The Message Bible brings out the richness of both the question and answer.
Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God. Galatians 3:5-6
If I would simply trust that God had already changed me that would allow Him to get on with growing me into the new creation. As long as I was trying to change, God wouldn’t help me because He had already changed me. He was not going to help me do something that was already done, but He would help me to become my true self.
It is a biological fact that a caterpillar and butterfly have the same DNA. A caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal or insect physically develops after birth or hatching and there is usually a change of behavior associated with metamorphosis.
The word transformation in Rom. 12:2 comes from the Greek word that we get metamorphosis. We are being transformed or literally metamorphosed into the image of Christ. With that transformation process comes the change in attitude, thoughts and behavior we all desire.
This is not a quibble over words. My point is to help us believe right because what we believe has power. If we do not believe we are a new creation in Christ we will spend a lot of time and effort sincerely focusing on the wrong thing – trying to change and become our true Christ-like selves and it will never happen.
If we will shift our focus to simply trusting God to grow or develop us into the image of Jesus we will discover a whole new dynamic at work inside of us. It is like the DNA of God is released into our souls and He begins to metamorphoses us. That does not mean there will not be struggle. The butterfly struggles to get free from the cocoon. That is part of the growth process. A big part of our struggle is to simply trust God to do what only He can do and stop trying to do it ourselves.
Many Blessings, BW