Transformed

Remember Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous love sonnet? "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ..."? My quirky sense of humor frequently has me twisting these lines to fit new scenarios. Such as today's, "How many ways can you drive me crazy? Let me count the ways ..."

Today's perversion of Browning's Sonnet 43 is right up there with frequent misquotes of the Bible, that is, incorrect applications of what we as God's children are required to do as opposed to what we should pray for. Most of us are familiar with misquotes such as, "God said He knows when every leaf falls." But we know that God never said that. He said He knows the number of the hair on our heads, not anything about leaves falling (Luke 12:7). We're also familiar with the refrain: "God said money is evil!" All I can say is, "Good job taking Scripture out of context." The full verse says the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). God knows we need money to live on and to further the Gospel. Ergo, money in itself is not evil. These are just a couple of aggravating misquotes. Then there are the incorrect applications ...

I recently heard a dear, dear friend say she prays daily for God to renew her mind. If the Lord opens the door, I will surely share the following with her, but, until then, let me unburden myself on you.

Yes, God's Word specifically talks about the need for our minds to be renewed. But the question is, how does that happen? Are we supposed to pray for it? Or is there something we are expected to do to achieve that end? What does Scripture say?

There are many, many things that are the sole purview of the Lord. Only He can produce life. Only He can woo a person to Himself. Only He can forgive our sins. You get the picture. But then there are other things that God requires us to do. In regard to the forgiveness of sin, He longs to enfold His sheep in His loving arms and perform the miraculous transformation of regeneration that wipes away all sin—but the sheep must first approach the Shepherd. That is the non-negotiable prerequisite. Jesus forgave the sinner on the cross, but only after that thief reached out to Him for mercy.

Jesus longs to carry the heavy burdens that weigh us down—but first we must lay them at His feet (Matthew 11:28).

Jesus longs to supply our every need—but first we must prove our belief in His provision by honoring Him with the goods with which He blesses us (Malachi 3:10).

Jesus longs to forgive us those snarky peccadillos that are the result of resentment and bitterness towards those who aggravate us, but first we must forgive others (Luke 11:4).

Conclusion? There are many bountiful blessings with which the Lord longs to shower His children, but there are prerequisites.

When God said, "Let us make man in our image," He was intimating that He made us even as He is, a triune being : in our case that would be body, soul, and spirit. Our spirit was made perfect when we gave our life to the Lord (Hebrews 1:23). Our body will be made perfect when it is transformed in the future (1 Corinthians 15:53). That leaves the soul, the repository of our thoughts and emotions, to be dealt with in the here and now. That-still-not-perfected soul has the potential to be like Jesus, but finds itself tarnished not only by our past, but by the world around us, as well as our thoughts and feelings. How can that transformation take place? By asking God to do so? Nope, the onus for the transformation of our soul, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings rests on none other than us.

Romans 12:2 tells us, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye many prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Paul is telling us to renew our mind. How? Not, as my cute little picture shows, by walking around with a Bible on our heads, but close to it. More than just on our heads, we need to get those words into our little grey cells!

Jesus told his disciples, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3). Immersing ourselves in God's Word cleanses away the unwelcome influences of the world around us.

Another Scripture touting the renewal of thought processes through the application of God's Word is Ephesians 5:25-26 "... Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word"

In other words, we must put into practice the principle set forth in Isaiah 61:3. That verse says God wants to give us the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But God doesn't just take the heaviness away from us, there is a part we have to play in the transaction. We have to take that garment of praise, put our arms through it, and put it on. Then, when we lift our voice in sacrificial praise, our heaviness is taken away.

Even so the transformation, the renewal, of our mind. God doesn't simply wave some magic wand and—poof! give it to us. Nope. We have to work at it ourselves. We must consciously and deliberately put on our new self, just like that garment of praise. "But now ye also ... have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him " (Colossians 3:9-10). How is it renewed in knowledge? By reading His Word. We have to consciously put away the old habits that reek of sin, actively put on those habits that cry, "I AM HIS!", and continue the transformation of our wanting-to-be-snarky soul by washing our worldly-filled minds with God's Word.

Yes, we are called to be perfect like Jesus. Yes, we are called to have a transformed mind. But this wonderful transformation doesn't come about by simply praying for it. It comes by purposeful actions: devouring His Word, spending time with Him, meditating on His words, intentionally stepping away from things we know are sinful, embracing those actions praised in God's Word.

Yes, let's follow Jesus. But let's not do it any which way, "hoping" we get a hit. We must do it consciously, with purpose, following with intelligent awareness of what God's Word calls us to do. Let us be truly transformed in every way possible ...

"And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible; therefore so run, but not with uncertainly; I so fight, but not as one that beateth the air" (1 Corinthians 9:25-26).