Day 140: Transformation by God

"These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.  For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error."  2 Peter 2:17-18

I found this message to be harsh, but it is an important reminder for us and how to live.

We all have a host of temptations that attempt to rule over us every day.  Sometimes, we overcome them; other times, we are overcome - thus is life.  In addition to being overcome by temptations, we will go out of our way to justify ourselves by judging all of those around us for everything we can imagine.  We will start to speak great words that are just empty.  When we do that, though, we become empty wells or weak clouds.  We give up all control over our lives to whatever temptation that comes our way.

Now, this might sound like a dead end, but that's not the case.  Sure, we can become like an empty well or a mere cloud, but we were all created in God's image.  God is working in all of us.  We don't have just one option to give our control over to temptations.  Instead, we can hand the control over to God, the expression of perfect, unconditional love in our lives.

When we try to talk our way through our temptations and our sins, we only become further enslaved by our sins.  However, when we start to adopt everything that God teaches and tells us, we can start to transform our lives.  It might start with just words.  Rather than deceive ourselves with our own words, we can speak the truths that we learn through God.  Once we speak them, we will start to live them.  Once we live them, we inch closer to God.  As we go further down our journey, we will start to become much more like God.  We need to allow for God to do the work in our bodies so that we can continue to heal. 

 

Day 095: Measures

"Judge not, and you shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.  For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."  Luke 6:37-38

Jesus gives us commands that are very direct and simple, yet we seem to forget them.

In a long sermon, Jesus tells us that we are going to face the results of all the things that we do in our lives.  In fact, the way that Jesus commands these things is similar to how God commanded them in the Old Testament - that all the commandments are there so that things would go well in the lives of those who obeyed.  When Jesus makes these commands, though, he explains them very simply.

Many times, we live our lives as if we were still children.  We don't think about how the things we do will affect all of those around us.  Now, many of us will say that we already take many factors into consideration, but when we reevaluate things, we might find many more factors that we could be affecting.  Maybe there is that one person we take for granted: we can trample all over her/him, but we forget that our actions will come right back to us.  That's where the above commandments come into play.

It's impossible for us to take every single person that we will ever encounter into account.  I just learned that the human brain can only maintain around 150 relations with other humans on average.  So what's the solution?  Just think about how you want things to come back to you.  Take all of your criticisms that you would make towards others and apply them to yourself.  Do you hate reading typos in articles?  Then start thinking about what care you should take in your own work.  Do people annoy you for not arriving on time?  Then make sure that you will never have any issues with timing and scheduling. 

One more verse I want to consider today is this: "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher."  (Luke 6:40)  A word that seems fleeting is "perfectly".  We think that just by listening to sermons at church or reading the bible will save us.  Jesus is training us.  Jesus is teaching us.  However, his teachings all involve an important point: you have to do them.  The above commandments are all commands.  They involve the second person - the you.  Therefore, let's all remember that Jesus calls us into action.  Jesus is calling us all to put all of his teachings into practice.  We can only train ourselves perfectly if we practice perfectly.  It will be difficult, but when we take the time to evaluate how we do everything with respect to our own lives, we will be able to get closer to being just like Jesus, our teacher.

Day 040: Transformation

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1-2

This message speaks to me so much for today, for it is about to be Lent.

Lent is a time for us to transform so that we can become a wholesome offering to God.  In the Old Testament, there are so many specifications about how perfect an animal has to be in order to be sacrificed.  Alongside that, we know that Jesus is the most perfect sacrifice to renew all of us.

But we can't get bogged down in all of the customs and traditions of the world.  Although we might like to think that if we purchase the right amount of candles and icons we would be saved, that's not what God wants from us.  We can't let things become stumbling blocks for us.  We need to follow Jesus and allow him to transform us.  We need to make everything in our lives things that will bring us closer to him.  We need to attach ourselves to spiritual things so that we may grow in the best way possible.

And so, as we prepare ourselves for Lent, ridding our surroundings of every temptation and purifying ourselves just before we go in to receive our ashes for Ash Wednesday, let these verses be our prayer, that God may take us and transform us into something that is pleasing and acceptable before God.  When our own desire is for God, then we can start to become more godlike - perfect.