Thursday, March 5, 2009

Changed

"... nor turn again by the same way that thou camest ..." I Kings 13:9b

I was thinking today while strolling the sunny streets of Helsinki, people need change. We saw in our last election in the States that the people of this world seeking the reality of the word that graced almost every billboard and newspaper in the country for months: CHANGE. I think everyone in the world is searching for it in some way. Why do you think women worry so much about their hair, or businessmen about their new car and new suit? It always has to be different and better. I believe there's some real truth to that search. 
It says in the Bible that we're created in God's image, but because of sin we've been changed. We've fallen from that image. Now it's God's mission to take us by Grace and to conform us into a new image: His Son. Our entire being is yearning for that change. God has a certain individual design for each one of us and He is in the process of transforming us into it. Every single situation that we go through is an opportunity for God to transform us, whether by sight it seems good or bad. How does He do it? "How is this change possible?" you might ask. I'll tell you, it's by going through the cross, losing all consciousness of self, through death, entering into resurrection life and seeing the glorified face of Jesus Christ. When we see that face, then we are like Him. We don't realize as we look at Christ, the Holy Spirit is within us, changing us from the inside-out. He's changing us into His image. We look into the mirror of Divine Perspective and we see our face, but at the same time it's His.  This is what Paul says in II Corinthians 3:18 and I John 3:2. This is the amazing paradox of the kingdom of heaven: we are 100% ourselves in our individuality, yet 100% Christ's very image. AMAZING! 
I feel, as many of us are preparing to go to Eurocon and many other trips, that God is saying a similar instruction to us like the one he gave the man of God in I Kings 13:9: "you shall not return again the same way that you came." I stumbled upon this part of this verse and I thought about how true this is for us. God is sending us out, whether it's Eurocon, Africa, Asia, Baltimore, work, school, whatever it is, and is saying, "don't come back the same way that you came, but let me take you a new way, just trust me." God want's to refresh us, change us, because He doesn't want us to live in a mechanical routine, but in the newness of His Life. Even if I've done something before or read something before, it's not the same, because I have changed. I see it differently because I'm walking in the newness of life. 
People in the world are looking for change but are only finding themselves becoming conformed to a system. What they really need is not a new car, or a new suit, or a new hair color, but it's a new heart and a new reality. They need a transformed life from the inside-out. Let's walk in new paths, fresh ways to look at the things we do and and know, let's be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

1 comment:

Heidi said...

I do totally agree! We need to change and I definitely want to come home from Eurocon being more and more like Him. Thanks for changing people's lives in Helsinki by giving up your will to His.