Change from the Inside

Where do you picture God in proximity to yourself? When you pray, for instance, do you visualize Him as being “up there, somewhere”? After all, Paul says, “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”¹ Do you envision Jesus side by side with you, as He himself said, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”?² Does God have your back or go before you? David marveled at both: “You hem me in behind and before.”³ Does God uphold you from beneath? After all, “his everlasting arms are under you,”⁴ assured Moses in his farewell address. These comforting promises attest to what we instinctively know: God is all around us and everywhere we go.

Yet amid this potpourri of prepositions stands one incomprehensible to us: Christ is in us. He lives in us through His Spirit in us. On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus instructed His disciples, “the Spirit of truth . . . will be in you,”⁵ then prayed to His Father that it be so—that “the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”⁶ Then it is through this indwelling of the Spirit that God transforms us into the likeness of Christ. Writes Paul, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”⁷ And it is God who is “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.”⁸ It is “from the Lord, who is the Spirit” that we “are being transformed into his image.”⁹ Who steadily changes us to be more like Jesus? Christ in us through His Spirit in us.

Some believers contend that changing into Jesus’ likeness is “up to us,” as though having been saved by grace through faith in Christ and born of the Spirit, we are left to grow up into His likeness by our own wisdom and power—orphans attempting the impossible. Others may not articulate it as such, yet they subject themselves to new “rules” and then berate themselves for failing to follow them. Indeed, we do have a role in the transformation process, and we will talk about this in a future post. Yet the truth remains, we can no more transform ourselves than we could save ourselves. Salvation and transformation—both are the work of the Holy Spirit in us; both are the manifestation of God’s love for us.

This week, take time to contemplate the richness of God’s transforming grace. Consider the changes He has already made in you, and rest in the certainty that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”¹⁰

Father, thank you for the richness of your grace; it is beyond our understanding. Open our hearts to receive and rejoice in your precious gift of transformation. In Christ we pray. Amen.

¹ Colossians 3:1 NIV
² Matthew 28:20 NIV
³ Psalm 139:5 NIV
⁴ Deuteronomy 33:27 NLT
⁵ John 14:17 ESV, emphasis added  
⁶ John 17:26 ESV, emphasis added
⁷ Philippians 2:13 ESV
⁸ Hebrews 13:21 ESV
⁹ 2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV
¹⁰ Philippians 1:6 ESV