Christians must be ‘transformed’
In a recent issue of the farragutpress it was reported that a business was in the process of a “transformation.”
The idea of “transformation,” generally defined as an induced change of one element into another by a process, has application not only to the business world but also to our spiritual life.
In Romans 12:2, Paul wrote: “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.”
The process of transformation, Paul wrote, takes place in the mind. He said further in Ephesians 4:17-24 that those who profess Christ “no longer walk in the futility of their mind ... alienated from the life of God.”
We learn further that we need to be renewed in the spirit of the mind and “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
There are many signposts along this process of transformation, but allow me to quote from Ephesians 4:31 and 32, which provide for us a few specific behaviors of the new person created in true righteousness and holiness.
Paul writes in these two verses, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.”
Finally, we need to understand that the process of transformation spiritually is lifelong.
As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:12 with regard to himself, “Not that I have already attained or am perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that from which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
