Let Us Aim for a Transformed Life

The apostle Paul invites us to take a positive stance and offers us an alternative to the life of the fleshly Christian who conforms to the values and desires of the world. He says: rather, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is the positive alternative, and that is God’s call.

As we continually submit ourselves to the Lord, a process of continual dying takes place: a living sacrifice loses its fleshly and animal traits and becomes more and more like God. The Bible tells us that, at the same time, a process of transformation is taking place.

Paul says, “But be transformed.” That word “be transformed” in the original Greek is metamorphousthe, and it means: be transformed. That is the ultimate result of a life lived in continual sacrifice, surrender, and adaptation to the values of the Kingdom of God.

By the end of our lives, we are supposed to have reached a state of transformation in which the final result is radically different from the man or woman who first began the Christian race. When we begin our walk with the Lord, we come with all kinds of wounds, deformities, and sinful attitudes. Then a process begins of smoothing away and gradually eliminating those sinful values and attitudes. As the years go by, we are supposed to reach a state of transformation, a radical difference in which we exemplify and display the qualities of someone transformed by the Power of God, someone whose character closely resembles that of Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, people who last saw us when we were babies in Christ are supposed to be able to see us again years later and say: Wow, what a great change this person has undergone! Their face looks renewed, their gaze clearer, purer, and more innocent; their way of speaking and behaving is more ethereal and more like Christ Jesus.

Transformation is what we are supposed to gain over the years. It should be our goal and the target we aim for every day of our lives. When we enter the ways of the Lord, we must say to the Father: Lord, transform me. Bring about a metamorphosis in my life so that those who see me in the coming years will not recognize me because I am so different.

By the way, the word metamorphosis is a compound word in the original Greek. Meta in Greek means change; morphos is where the word form comes from. It refers to a change of form, but more than a change in outward form, it is almost a change in structure itself, almost a change in nature. That is why Christ and the Word speak to us of being born again. Unless we are born of water and the Spirit, the Bible says, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

With this fallen, sinful nature, with these negative attitudes that disobey the Word of the Lord, we will never enter the Kingdom of God. A metamorphosis, a change in us, must take place through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, leading us to become more and more like Christ Jesus.

Scientists have also used the word metamorphosis to refer to the change in a caterpillar when it is transformed from a caterpillar into a butterfly. Many people may not know that those beautiful butterflies, with their almost transparent, multicolored wings, flying so gracefully through gardens and through the air, were originally humble caterpillars crawling along the ground.

Not long ago I was out in the countryside in a state here in the United States called Maine, and I saw a very lovely caterpillar on the ground, quite thick and unusually large for a caterpillar. I watched it crawling there on the ground, and suddenly it dawned on me that one day that caterpillar would be a beautiful butterfly flying through the air. How would that transformation happen? One could never imagine how that rather unappealing insect could suddenly become a gorgeous butterfly that one could hold in one’s hand and delight in looking at—delicate, soft, ethereal.

A change has taken place, a metamorphosis. That caterpillar enters its cocoon and is surrounded by a casing. An incredibly mysterious biological process takes place, and at a certain point the creature inside, which entered as an unpleasant caterpillar, begins to break through that outer casing. When it frees itself, a beautiful butterfly emerges. And that is how we are supposed to live our Christian lives.

We enter the Kingdom of God as caterpillars, full of corruption, sins, and attitudes displeasing to God. We enter the cocoon of God’s dealings with us: His mysterious work in us, His transforming work, His Spirit, the trials of the Christian life, the fire, the crucible of God’s dealings with us, the afflictions of this world experienced in the light of the Word. And we emerge transformed, becoming more and more like Christ.

By the way, I say “completely transformed,” and that is not entirely true. Our transformation is continuous and never ends. True transformation takes place when we enter the Kingdom of God resurrected, with new life in Christ Jesus and an entirely different appearance and nature, ready at last to live for eternity in the Presence of God.

But here in this world, we are supposed to aim for a transformed life. Are you living that way? Are you aware of God’s call to become a transformed person? If not, today is the day to begin and to ask the Holy Spirit to transform you into a butterfly that glorifies the Name of God. May the Lord bless you, and see you soon. Your brother in Christ, Roberto Miranda, says goodbye for now.