The Process of Transformation

UV 370/10,000 2 Corinthians 3 v 18 The Process of Transformation 2Co 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We were created in the image of God. Our spirit was originally the mirror image of God. We lost it on the way even as a child looses her innocence as she is exposed to the world. When we look into the Word,we are looking into a mirror in which we can perceive the character, purpose and will of our Lord. As we keep looking into this spiritual mirror, we learn about the new facets of His image. The Holy Spirit will remind us and help us refocus on that image and shape us up so that over a period of time, our resemblance to the Lord’s image will increase. We are not transformed over night but over a lifetime and degree by degree, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, moment by moment. Transformation means not conforming to the world’s standards and conforming instead to God’s standards. Jesus standard of forgiveness is that we must forgive our brother or sister 70 time 7 or in other words without keeping count of our grudges. His standard of love vis a vis the Father is that we must love Him with all our heart, all our strength and all our mind or in other words, we must constantly express our love for God in thought, word and deed, in spirit, mind and body, in prayers, praise and worship, in emotions, decisions and actions. His standard of love vis a vis our fellow beings is to love another as we love ourselves, to do unto others what we would have them do to us. When we end our time of devotion or meditation on the Word, we must not forget the areas we do not resemble the image of God. Our self awareness combined with the consciousness of God will initiate the process of change in our lives so that we get better incrementally. A realistic parent does not expect his child to become an Olympic athlete overnight. Similarly, the Lord expects us only to keep taking tiny, stumbling baby steps towards perfection, His glory or His standards. He knows that when our spiritual muscles become strong and surer, then we will take the giant leap of faith. Over time, our thought process will change from ANT to APT or from Automatic Negative Thought to Automatic Positive Thought, our priorities of learning from KSA or Knowledge, Skills and Attitude to Attitude, Skills and Knowledge. Our life pattern will change from Substance ( or having ) first , Performance( doing next) and Image ( being last) to IPS or Image ( being first) , Performance ( doing next ) and Substance ( having ) last. The elements in our composition whether we are a believer or a non believer, a saint or sinner are the same. It is only the pattern of their arrangement that is changed. It is the transformation of our patterns that makes us “ new creations.” Prateep V Philip