The journey of discipleship is not about becoming like Jesus after all. Becoming “like” someone is a matter of conforming. Ted Stone was my first pastor. As a young Christian I looked at Pastor Ted as the epitome of what a Christian should be like. I remember thinking that I wanted to be a pastor like Ted. Not simply “like” him but “like” him. I wanted to talk like him, walk like him, laugh like him. In essence I wanted my life to form like his. And, of course, this is the problem. Conforming is all about thinking and behaving like someone else. Or it is behaving and thinking in “a socially acceptable way” (Encarta Dictionary). I think many Christians have conforming mixed up and being transformed.
Transformed vs Conformed
We have the ability to conform ourselves. When we admire someone and want to be like them we conform to what we believe they are like. We can adopt similar values to others, we can watch what the watch, act like they act and slowly take on their very persona. In its simplest for conforming is neutral: neither good nor bad. It all depends on what you are being conformed to. Aristotle tells us that an unexamined life is not worth living. He goes on to tell us how to conform our character to good, is to be good and practice goodness. More simply he believed moral virtues are cultivated by habit. And he was right. We really do become our habits. But this is not transformation; this is conforming. There are plenty of groups working hard to help people become “good or better” people. This is done by focusing on what it means to be good and what behavior needs to be practiced to learn goodness. But goodness does not get us to heaven nor does it transform us.
Transformation on the other had is similar, but very different. The goal is not to become like someone in our thoughts and actions. Maybe this is where we get confused. We are not to copy Jesus, but Jesus is our example of what we will become if we are transformed. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT) 18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. Jesus is the first born of a new type of humanity. Romans 8:29 (NLT) “29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” A caterpillar can become like another caterpillar. But it cannot become like a butterfly. It can try and act like a butterfly but it can never become a butterfly. To be like Jesus from the Biblical perspective is to be of the same nature or essence. It is not simply acting like Jesus. The goal in transformation is to become something completely different from what you were. The caterpillar becomes a butterfly through the process of metamorphosis, very, very different from what it was.
Transformation is not mirroring the actions of Jesus, it is becoming like him so that our actions are “naturally” like his actions. Transformation is not something we do to ourselves, it is something God does to us. Ours is to choose, his is to operate. Transformation requires a heart operation that is both radical and delicate. God does not perform it all at once. He does it little by little as we have the strength to go through it. At each step of the way he asks the question, “are you ready for the next stage?” If we say no, he does not proceed. But when we willingly climb back up on the operating table he makes the right incision in the right place. His goal is not to make us a copy-cat image of Jesus, he wants to make us into a new creature. Jesus was the first born. Through the God directed process of transformation we come part of the new creation.
Will you say yes to God? Are you ready to submit once again to become a “living sacrifice?”
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