“When we follow Jesus, we enter into a continual state of transformation from what we once were into the likeness of Christ”
The best analogy that represent progressive transformation is Butterfly transformation
2 Corinthians 5:14-21 (NLT)
14 Christ’s love controls us.[c] Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.[d] 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
4 PHASES OF TRANSFORMATION WITHIN
1. Encounter phase (born again) – Eggs
2 Corinthians 5:14
14 Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.[d] 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
We got saved or we are born again when we believe that Chris died for us.
An encounter phase is not just changing our religion or embracing one religion, oh now you come to church, you sing a hymn or fold hands & close your eyes to pray before every meal.
An encounter with Christ brings about repentance – v15 those who receive his new life, they will no longer live for themselves.
Repentance in Greek word is metanoia, which means change of heart and mind, change of life direction.
2. Growth phase
(through the knowledge of the truth) - Larva (caterpillar).
"Growth is spurred by consumption"
Caterpillars need to eat a lot as it needs to grow, it needs to shed its skin as many as 4-5 times.
The only way for us to grow and becoming more and more like Jesus is to consume the truths, And the opposite is true as well, when we consume anything other than the truth, we become more and more unlike Jesus, we become more like the world – the speaking pattern, the thinking pattern and the living pattern becoming more like the world.
[s12] 2 Corinthians 5
16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
At the growth phase is the phase where we grow through consuming the knowledge of the truth. By consuming the truth, we discover Jesus, our saviour in the new light- notice the text that says how differently we know him now.
Change is something you do but transformation is something you become
We can change the way we do things, we change how we appears on the outside.
But transformation comes from within.
Every phase has its own purpose! You need to grow through the knowledge of the truth, not only enable you to GROW IN SIZE (mature) and but also enable you to GROW IN STRENGTH to go through stuffs. Because in the next phase, I call it – struggle and development phase, we need strength from within that comes from God.
3. Struggle and Development phase - Pupa (Chrysalis)
Pupa is the most intriguing & difficult phase of butterfly development, which appears to be disaster from the perspective of the caterpillar. Though the pupa appears unchanged from the outside during this phase, there is dramatic transformation taking place on the inside.
At this phase, The caterpillar looks stuck but actually not stuck in that cocoon, it looks like doing nothing but it is actually digesting all the foods that has been consumed in the previous phase,
WHY? so he could have the STRENGTH FROM WITHIN to break out from the cocoon as a butterfly.
it is in the struggle that our character is most developed
4. Mature phase: bearing fruits, winning souls - Adult butterfly
And when we finally break out, made a breakthrough, not without a purpose. Adult or mature Butterfly has one and one goal only that is to produce lots of eggs or more butterflies.
The direct analogy to us a Christian is to be mature Christians who bear many fruits, discipling people and be the ambassadors for Christ.
2 Corinthians 5
18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So therefore we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us (*look at our lives, not that we have it all together, get all our acts together, not our lives without problem or struggles but God gives us His grace to sustain us and His truth to grow in strength). We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
How many of you to see this end coming, that you will be used by God, regardless our struggle we may face today - covid19, we will not just go through it, we will be transformed through it!
