Transformed by Grace

Everyone knows or at least agrees that transformation is an act of grace.  It is not achieved through great human effort, self discipline or reading the right kind of books.  The caterpillar is not changed into a butterfly by an effort to change.  The change flows out of a process and is the end product of a process that combines what the caterpillar does and what nature causes.  The caterpillar would stand no chance of change without being a good caterpillar and eating the right leafs at the right time.  After following this routine it shifts to a the waiting mode while the process is completed.

Christians are no different.  God expects us to live obedient lives that seek to follow after God with all our heart. All this with the full recognition that all the following in the world and all the obedience in the world will not transform us.  What it does is put us in the position of actively waiting on God.  Our devotions, our prayers, our meditations are all tools God uses in our lives to redesign us.  While we do them, God uses them.  He uses them to help point out our failures and short comings.  He uses them to rebuild our thought patterns and ideas of what we should and should not do.  But with all this comes the sure knowledge of not meeting the standard that God requires.  At the same time we become overwhelmed with the sure knowledge that his grace is sufficient to meet and deal with our short comings and failure.  This goes on while he quietly proceeds to transform us by his Spirit through the day to day activities of life.  It is God that allows and then uses both the mundane, the tragic and the glorious to move us from sinners to saints, from hopeless, to victorious.  And in the process we give him all the glory for he alone is worthy and he alone can make butterflies out of caterpillars.