There’s hope for us. We are not unavoidably doomed to our flaws and failures and to our pains and scars. We can become something that we are not.
The New Testament informs us that followers of Jesus “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10) and “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Romans 8:29 reveals that God has planned for his children “to be conformed to the image of his Son.” While these statements cover more than our individual, personal makeup and inner spiritual, mental and emotional condition, they still do include our everyday way of being and acting. We can become like our God, like Jesus himself: full of life, peace, joy, strength, and love.
It happens by a process of conforming that produces transforming. Not by obeying rules and commandments. Not by practicing religious activities. Not by working in service to God. These things may be some of the results of our transformation but they are not the means of becoming the something that we are not. They are not what gives us hope. The process of conforming to Christ brings about our transforming. This is a reshaping process.
Since Jesus is the true human image of God, the image that all humans are intended to be (see previous post “Jesus Is the Man”), we need to be shaped like him. Who we are needs to conform to who Jesus is in the flesh. We need to conform to the kind of person that he is. As I have said before, this does not mean simply trying to copy the way Jesus lived or merely looking to him as a great example and inspirational guide. It means that we take our place with Jesus; we join with him; we trust our selves to him; we entrust our lives – mind, heart, body, past, present, future – into his ownership and care. We start to live in a way that the New Testament astonishingly calls “in Christ” and “Christ in me.” Thus we are transferred to a different sphere of life – the kingdom of God – and transformed into a different sort of person – the children/images of God. Who Jesus is and what he is all about become ours; we receive, as a gift of God’s mercy, a Jesus-shaped identity and destiny.
That identity and destiny necessarily entail the development of a new character – beliefs, attitudes, priorities, and actions.
A good illustration or metaphor that I have found is a process in manufacturing called stretch forming. It’s the shaping of sheet metal (such as aluminum, stainless steel, titanium) by stretching and bending. The image below shows the process. A piece of sheet metal is stretched and bent simultaneously over a die in order to form large contoured parts. The metal is securely held along its edges by gripping jaws. The gripping jaws are each attached to a carriage that is pulled by pneumatic or hydraulic force to stretch the sheet. A form die is the solid contoured piece against which the sheet metal will be pressed. As the form die is driven into the sheet the tensile forces increase and the sheet plastically reforms into a new shape. (From Capps Manufacturing) Note that the metal does not merely get bent into a different shape. It is stretched beyond the point where it will return to its original condition. It is permanently changed.
In Christ, the Holy Spirit carries out a “sheet forming” process in us. It is a powerful process. It has to be. We don’t naturally have much “plasticity” in us. We don’t change easily. The Spirit exerts tremendous force in us. I don’t mean by that that God forces us to comply. I mean that he uses great power in us, in fact the same power he used to raise Jesus from the dead. That means there is actually real hope for us.
The Spirit’s power at work is often very pleasant, joyful. Forgiveness. Redemption. Acceptance. Rest. Assurance. Beauty. Transcendence. Revelation. These are the foundational forces that God exerts in us. They are at the heart of his will and purpose for us.
And sometimes the Spirit’s power is not so pleasant. We experience disappointment, pain, challenges, struggles, grief. I don’t believe that God causes all of these kinds of things to happen. He is at work in us as these things happen. We find out how much we need help. And, going deeper within us, the Spirit’s power brings out a recognition of how broken we are, how off-track we have gotten, how wrong we think and feel and act, how “dead” we are living. That realization hurts deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly. But it has to be. Then we can accept God’s love, mercy, and remaking.
God calls us to come to Christ just the way we are yet with the willingness to be re-formed into the way we need to be. We can’t stop at the point of thinking, “With God I can be the person I am.” According to Matthew 7:16-18 Jesus said, “Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” In context he was talking about false prophets – people who claimed to be God’s messengers but did not live as God’s children. We all come to Christ as a “bad tree” and we don’t have the right or freedom to say we’re a “good tree.” We find though that we can become “good” – not as a tree on our own but as a branch growing in Christ (John 15:1-8).
Yes, there is hope for us. Whatever has happened does not have to have the final say. The “stuff” you’ve done and the “stuff” that has been done to you is not all there is. The story you are living is not the only story there is. You don’t have to end up in guilt, anxiety, fear, and giving up. In Christ there is transformation. There is new identity and destiny and therefore peace, healing, and thriving.