Transform Your Life in 2002

ave you ever thought, "I do so many things wrong. I try, but I'm just so inadequate. How can God love me?" Today I want to give you God's solution for human weakness. If you really want to know how to turn your life around, this information is absolutely necessary.

When we turn to the Bible as God's revealed knowledge for humanity, we find in Genesis 1:26-27 that mankind is created in the likeness of God. Human beings were created to have a relationship with their Creator.

The Bible also tells us in Genesis 2:7 that the first man, Adam, became a "living soul" (KJV). Both the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 18:4 and the New Testament apostle Paul in Romans 6:23 tell us that "the soul who sins shall die" and that "the wages of sin is death." Decay and death are the natural results of living life differently than the way directed by the Creator.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God in Eden, they came under the influence of the fallen angel Satan. From that point onward all humankind has been under Satan's tutelage, and human nature has developed in the opposite direction of God's nature. Mankind has literally become the enemy of God. Paul writes in Romans 8:7 that the natural human mind is "...enmity against God...."

Cut off from God, subject to the influence of a powerful and evil being who wants to destroy us and condemned to death because our very nature is corrupted by sin, every human being is in a real sense lost and hopeless.

God wants to heal the sickness in your nature, your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your values.

If you have any kind of Christian background, you've been taught that God sent His Son to save human beings from eternal punishment. This is true, but Christ does more than that. God wants to heal the sickness in your nature, your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your values. He wants to change you to reflect His nature. This process is known as conversion.

Read what Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 18:1-3: "At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, 'Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?' Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.'"

Contrary to some popular teachings, the Bible reveals that Christian conversion is more than an intellectual acceptance of God's existence. It's more than belief in Jesus as the Savior. It's more than proclaiming a certain set of religious teachings. Conversion takes place when a person, of his own free will, repents of his sinful nature and submits to the bonding of God's Holy Spirit to his mind, thereby becoming partakers of God's nature.

Sounds a little farfetched? Can a human being actually share the thoughts, love and life-changing power of the Creator?

The apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14 that a real relationship with God's Spirit produces genuine life change, not just a one-time emotional experience of "giving your heart to the Lord."

Paul writes: "But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

You see, human beings are the only incomplete physical life form on earth. God isn't finished with our development; and as astounding as it may seem, unless we receive a "Spirit" from God we can never become completed creations.

Conversion is a process comparable to the metamorphosis of some insects. One of the most fascinating of all insect metamorphoses is how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.

Did you know that a caterpillar's skin can't stretch except when new? As they consume food, their skins quickly stretch to the limit. The only reason they can grow larger is that a new, soft skin forms under the old one. After a while the old skin bursts open and is discarded. The caterpillar continues this process until it is as large as it can get.

Then the process gets really interesting. By creating a small patch of silk, the caterpillar attaches itself to a twig. It sheds its skin and now appears as a totally different insect. This strange sack like creature is called a pupa.

The caterpillar may spend weeks as a pupa, but inside that sack something marvelous is taking place. The organs of what was once a caterpillar are dissolving and becoming nourishment for a new creature forming inside the sack. When completely developed, the exquisite butterfly emerges from the pupa.

Conversion is God's metamorphosis of our minds, emotions, motivations, desires and actions from the way of the natural person, which guarantees death, to the spiritual character of God. God isn't interested in just remodeling your character. He wants to replace it with His nature. God wants to change us from mud crawlers into creatures who can fly.

This process of conversion isn't easy. It involves a struggle between our own selfish nature and the new nature being created by the Holy Spirit. True conversion isn't a simple matter of accepting certain religious teachings or doing good deeds. True conversion is the sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating commitment to the struggle of allowing God to create in us a brand new person.

Human beings are the only incomplete physical life forms on earth.

Understand, since conversion is a process, Christians are in various stages of the spiritual metamorphosis of having their human nature changed into godly nature. All Christians, even with God's Spirit, wrestle with sin. All Christians from time to time return to selfish ways.

The apostle John writes about this subject starting in 1 John 1:8. He writes: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

It is common for human beings, faced with our own inadequacies, to fall into the trap of "What can God see in me? It seems that I change and overcome so slowly. Isn't God going to someday just give up on me?"

It's true that God doesn't condone sin, and unrepentant sinners will receive eternal punishment. So how does God look at a Christian who has received His Spirit, someone who is struggling with sin and sometimes loses a battle with their old nature or Satan?

God's vision and perseverance with us can be illustrated by the following story.

In September 1924 a stout, robust man of 60 years was spending many hours hiking the rugged area around the Harney Range of South Dakota. He searched the crest of every mountain peak looking for something. Some thought this man's dream was unrealistic. There was doubt about how the project was to be funded.

But this man was driven by a dream that filled him with one purpose. Where other people saw rugged crags and inhospitable rocks, this man saw faces.

His son, Lincoln, wrote in Mount Rushmore--The Story Behind the Scenery about what it was like when his father found and chose a remote mountain as the place to complete his dream: "This was the monolith my father had been searching for: a gigantic mountain of solid granite, towering above the surrounding peaks and well separated from them. Most important, the major face of the rock was to the southwest, an aspect essential for maximum sunlight during the daylight hours. As he talked in that positive, mesmerizing way of his, I began to see in the great peak the colossal mountain sculpture he could create there."

Where other people saw rocks, Gutzon Borglum saw the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. It took years of hard, sometimes seemingly impossible work to complete the project. Dynamite was used to sculpt the peak into general shapes. Hundreds of men, sweating in the summer heat and freezing in winter, driven by the will of one man, shaped Mount Rushmore into one of the greatest feats of sculpture accomplished in history.

God's creation is driven by one dream--the return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of His children. Then God will change the saints into spirit, and they will finally see God "face to face." This is the promise to all who wish to submit to God's creative conversion process in this lifetime.

When Christians look into the spiritual mirror, sometimes all we can see are the rocks, the unsightly cracks and outcroppings that make us so imperfect. What God sees is the emerging faces of His children. You can be one of those children if you let God work with you in the transformation process.

This article is based on the transcript of a Good News radio broadcast. Good News Radio is heard on stations across the United States. For an Internet listing of stations and times or to download radio programs, go to www.ucg.org/radio. You can also download or request the free booklet offered on this program--.