Tag: Transformation

Categories
Uncategorized

Winning Freedom

“Happy Memorial Day!” It’s a conflicted greeting, isn’t it? The day arrives each year with such innate ambivalence: We rise to honor valor in conflict, while kneeling to grieve the wars that demanded it; we bow to mourn the ultimate sacrifice of a million souls, even as we celebrate the day under the freedom they gave their life to defend. Yes, there is a distinct tension about Memorial Day, though an important one, for as Solomon observed, “death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). And so we do. Yet for the believer there awaits another destiny—a glorious one—eternal life, the door to which death is reduced to the station of a lowly welcome mat. So, in this week of mourning, let’s use this space to look up from our sadness and fix our eyes on the promise of new life, one more certain than death, indeed one that begins before we die and can never be taken away. Consider:

“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” {John 14:2, 3)

Jesus said to [Martha], “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, 26)

“Do you believe this?” Reverberating through the generations, Jesus’ question reaches us. He has done everything for us—lived without sin to become our perfect sacrifice, incurred the punishment we deserve, burst and chains of death that surely would have fettered us forever. This is what we celebrate. This is why we hope. This is whom we proclaim: He who died—and rose—to win our freedom and give us life.

Yes, Jesus, we believe you are the resurrection and the life. Send your Spirit to lead us in freedom, that God would be glorified through our transformed lives. Amen.

Categories
Uncategorized

Up, up, and away!

A couple of years ago, Peggy and I invited some international students to the Marysville Balloon Festival, a fun day of absorbing the sights, listening to tunes, and, of course, consuming junk food. At some point in the afternoon, about a dozen pick-up trucks with trailers pulled up alongside the airstrip. We watched, mesmerized, as the aviators and crew unpacked their hot air balloons—each one spectacular: huge, colorful, not one like another—and spread them out on the ground. Thinking back on it later, they were a picture of humankind separated from Christ1—majestic in design and unique in conception, though empty and spiritually lifeless.2

As the crews began to fill the listless behemoths with hot air, we initially saw no outward change at all, but after a while, the skyward side of the balloons began to billow, and over time their topsides started to rise. Finally, filled with hot air, every balloon stood upright, anchored to the ground, yet reaching for the sky. They were magnificent, yet stationary; beautiful, but going nowhere and doing nothing. This, too, was illustrative, depicting a point along our spiritual journey: “born of the Spirit,”3 yet not moving, birthed but not launched.

Then, at the right time, one by one, these silent aircraft lifted into the atmosphere, and we saw their glory—hot air balloons transformed into what hot air balloons are supposed to be and doing what they were created to do. Carried on currents, they were visible now for miles around, spreading out and bringing joy even to those who did not come to see them. Likewise, it is God’s purpose that all who are in Christ by faith be filled with His Spirit and transformed to the image of His Son, realizing our identity and pursuing His purposes.

The apostle Paul tells us, “We all who … contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”4 Please stop and re-read this verse; He is working in you today. Over the coming months, this will be our focus: God steadily transforming us into the likeness of His Son. May it be so.

Father, thank you for saving us through Christ and for transforming us to His likeness today. Your will be done. In His name, we pray. Amen.

1 Ephesians 2:12
2 Ephesians 2:1
3 John 3:8
4 2 Corinthians 3:18

Categories
Uncategorized

Your Loss Is Your Gain

“What people resist is not change, per se, but loss.”1—Ronald Heifetz et al

I knew a man who was so confident in one company’s leadership that, when it issued stock, he mortgaged his house and plowed all of its equity into that business, willing to lose everything in the belief the company would return more on his money than any other feasible option. His faith was well-rewarded, for his investment grew quickly and steadily, tripling in a few short years, and before the man died, he had the opportunity to tell the company’s CEO, “You allowed me to realize the American dream.”

We look to our salvation as gain, and rightly so, for what we have in Christ is too vast to be measured. Yet transformation into His likeness is change, and change requires loss—continually putting worldly values behind us. “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it,”2 Jesus told his disciples in private. And to an immense crowd gathered before Him, He taught, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”3 In turn, and much like the investor who staked his confidence entirely in the company’s leadership, Paul sold all for Christ, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ…”4

What former treasure did Paul now wheel to the curb as trash? Legalistic righteousness, impeccable lineage, unsurpassed education, and worldly accomplishment for starters. He mortgaged safety for danger, traded freedom for imprisonment, and exchanged esteem for ridicule—all in the confidence of the gain that lay ahead of him. So I think, what do I need to drop in the dumpster to make more room for Christ and to serve the people He loves? The yen for conditional acceptance has done me no good, and frankly I’m tired of it—that can go. Comfort and convenience? Those are precious to me, but they render me ineffective in the Kingdom, which nears with each passing day. Toss them, too. Oh, yeah, then there’s that…

Lord Jesus, lead me in loss as I follow you in gain. Grace me to realize the Heavenly dream. Amen.

1 Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, Marty Linsky, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, (Boston: Harvard Business Press), 22.
2 John 12:24
3 Matthew 13:44
4 Philippians 3:8