Transforming Power

I recently turned 73 years of age.  I’m now exchanging physical strength and stamina, memory, mental focusing abilities and certain capacities for a significantly improved relationship with my God and a much greater perspective of God and life.  I left college thinking I knew most everything important for life and ministry.  But after being a few years in ministry, I realized I knew very little, and my knowledge and wisdom were misguided and only a little more than naïveté.  I thought I loved my bride, Connie, but now clearly see that love was a drop in the bucket compared to mature love.  Living life has a way of changing how we think and respond. 

God also transforms our spiritual perspective over time.  In my recent reflections in Isaiah, I compared Isaiah’s perspective of God in chapter 6 with his perspective in chapter 25.  In chapter 6, God’s presence frightens him which is indicative of a lack of relational closeness.  By the time he writes the prophesy in chapter 25, in contrast to being afraid of God, there is now a sense that he has a different relationship with God which has led to warm praise and exaltation of Him for the wonderful things He had done as well as the wisdom and faithfulness He had made evident. 

This comparison caused me to wonder to what extent I have allowed the Holy Spirit to transform my relationship over the years and thereby my perception of Him.  Is my worship warmer and more heartfelt, or does it now have an impersonal, ritualized tone to it?  I’ve learned from experience that I am not always yielded and therefore fail to learn as much as He has planned for me to learn in first grade, or subsequent class, so I must take the class again.  I have also observed that pattern is true for far too many believers.  Sadly, I’ve also noticed some seem remain for decades in the spiritual elementary grades. In the last church I served, a professionally created church survey revealed there were those who had been in those early elementary classes for 25 years!   In that light I must seriously consider how much I have allowed the Spirit to transform me.

How about you?  How much have you been taking initiative to work with the Holy Spirit’s efforts in transforming you into the likeness of Jesus Christ?  Paul pointed out a believer’s goal must be to grow until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13, ESV).  THAT is a high standard!!  Do others see you thinking, doing and responding as Jesus did while walking in his humanity on this earth?

As a child I remember putting marks on a door frame to identify how much I had grown.  It felt great just to see I had grown half an inch.  It took at years before reaching my full physical stature.  The Bible uses physical growth as a metaphor to spiritual growth when it uses the terms “babe, little children, young man and father.”  Looking back at the life-changing, paradigm shifting milestones in your spiritual growth, in what specific areas have you allowed the Spirit to transform you from one stage and to another into His likeness?  From what I have observed in scripture, a motivated adult can move from spiritual birth to the early stages of maturity in 3-5 years.  After that spiritual transformation looks more like grad school.  If your spirit has not been transforming as quickly as it should know this; a) God is very eager to help you grow, b) you may very well need to realign some hardened areas of your thinking that have led to your spiritual stall, c) the result of that realignment will be a fresh flowing relationship with God.  I know from experience the growing experience will be marked by deeper peace and greater joy.  

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