Let's be transformed

“I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34 NLT)

When God does a work of transforming a life, he does it completely. There is no 'half-way' with God. He puts his word deep within our hearts, not so that he can control us, but so we can know him better and better with each passing day. Yes, his word acts as a 'control' over our own impulses, but God never takes away our self-will even when he puts his word within us and gives us his Spirit to live in us. His desire is that we will allow him to be our God and willingly participate as a member of his family in the ways he sets out before us.

God's transformational work actually sets in motion the transformation of way more than just us. It is the catalyst by which others can see and get to know the God we serve. His work within us acts as a testimony of his love and grace for others to see and desire for their own lives. Forgiven sinners are a living testimony of his grace. The life of the redeemed isn't lived in secret - it is an 'out there' kind of faith that others can see. Sometimes we try to hide what God is doing, while he is asking us to let him put his work on display so others may come to desire his transformational work themselves.

The one who comes to the Lord undergoes a transformation in so many areas of their lives, but perhaps there is none greater than the one done in the mind. The thought life begins to change, not because we get 'brainwashed' into believing only certain things, but because our brain gets 'washed' of the things that don't belong there. Things like stored away hurts and untruths we have laid hold of as 'fact'. The washing away of our sins also brings a transformation of our thought life. The little lies we have believed that kept us bound to our sinful choices begin to be washed away until all that is left is his truth.

It is by this transformation in our way of thinking that we begin to see the things that delighted us in our sinful pursuits as futile and hurtful. We actually develop a 'dislike' to those things as we would to a food item that was so distasteful to us that we never ate it again. When God sets to work transforming our thought life, he begins to unfold truths to us that we never fully understood before. Truth is what sets us free to live and act differently. All action begins with thought - so the sooner we let God get to work in our thought life, the sooner we will realize his transformative work. The sooner that happens, the 'louder' and 'clearer' our testimony will become of his grace and love. Just sayin!