The more we draw near to God, the more we grow in Him, the more we see our own wretchedness and those areas in our lives that must be pruned and tended to. Since we’ve become fans of labeling everything, the term that has been coined for this continual maturing and growing in righteousness is progressive sanctification. Daily, we become more like Him; daily, our desires, aspirations, goals, and ambitions are transformed because the more of Him we know, the more humbled we are by His love and grace.
We are being transformed, and daily so, from glory to glory,
and that which we took pleasure in yesterday becomes as a bitter taste in our
mouth today because we realize it is hindering our walk with Him.
What should be more troubling than world events or politics
to some today is the reality that they’ve been in a static spiritual state for
years, if not decades. They have not grown, matured, or been transformed but
are the same as they ever were, the only difference being a fish sticker on
their car. It may not be spiritual death, but it’s close enough, and the more
time passes that they remain in that inert state, the colder their hearts
become toward the things of God.
The pinnacle of your spiritual maturity isn’t when you
surrender your heart to Christ; that’s just the beginning of a lifelong
journey, and with each passing day, your spiritual man must become more robust,
your faith more steadfast, and your walk more surefooted. It took a lifetime of
Job walking with God, knowing Him, and serving Him for him to be able to hold
fast to his integrity when his trial buffeted him. Had he not prioritized his
relationship with God over all else, we may have never been privy to the story
of Job or his faithfulness in the bleakest of circumstances.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the
same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Men abuse liberty just as they abuse grace, not understanding
that the message Paul was trying to send to the Corinthians via his second
letter wasn’t permission to do as they willed but rather a reminder that
although they had liberty, lest they forget, the natural progression of an
individual is to be transformed into the image of the Lord, from glory to
glory.
When men refuse to put away childish things, any excuse will
do. They’ll butcher scripture, take it out of context, twist it to say something
it clearly doesn’t, all because their sin is more important to them than
serving, worshipping, and knowing God. That’s the reality of it. They forfeit
the knowledge of God for the momentary, fleeting pleasures of life but still
have the temerity to insist that they are walking in His will because they have
liberty.
If Job had been looking for an excuse to give up, one was
within reach. He could have deemed his trials undeserved, too harsh for a
loving God to allow, or not what he signed up for, but instead, he held fast to
his integrity and worshipped God.
Even when his wife came up with the brilliant idea that he
should curse God and die, he didn’t react in anger, browbeat her, or demand
that she remove herself from his presence. Even at his lowest, as she poured
salt into the open wounds, his character remained intact, and his response was
in accordance with it.
Job 2:10, “But he said to her, “You speak as one of the
foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not
accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
We know next to nothing about Job’s life up until the point
the enemy asked to sift him. By then, he’d already amassed a great fortune, had
ten children, and oversaw a large household. Given the time of Job, however, it
would not be a stretch to conclude that he was a hard man, as all the men of
that time needed to be in order to survive, yet when he addressed his wife,
even though she’d been used by the enemy to try and get him to curse God, he
spoke to her with a tenderness inherent in decades-long marriages the world
over. It may be a small, often overlooked thing, but having been married for a
quarter of a century, come next June, his tenderness toward his wife even as he
sat in ashes, covered in painful boils, and scratching himself with a potsherd,
speaks volumes to me.
He didn’t berate her, call her an idiot, scream at her, or
strike her as was common in those days, but inferred he was surprised that she
would speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Job thought much of his wife,
the mother of his children, and he couldn’t reconcile her words with the woman
with whom he’d shared his life.
The transformative power of God extends to every area of our
lives. It’s not just in the consistency of worship but in how we interact with
those around us, whether disagreeable spouses, snarky progeny, obtuse bosses,
or angry neighbors. It’s that transformation into the likeness of Christ that
those who knew us while we were still of the world notice and react to first
before we even get a chance to tell them about Jesus.
My grandfather’s brother was neither a kind nor gentle man
while he was still of the world. He was gruff, barrel-chested, with a short
fuse and calloused knuckles. Violence was his go-to, no matter the situation,
and any perceived sleight was enough to set him off. That he was a heavy
drinker, what some may deem a functioning alcoholic nowadays, didn’t help
matters either. Then he encountered Jesus, surrendered his life to Him, and he
was a man transformed, a new man, in every sense of the word. He stopped
drinking, cursing, being short-tempered and easily offended, and the man who
once stirred so much fear in the hearts of others as to make them cross the
street if they saw him coming now smiled, and laughed, and asked others if they
needed help for no other reason than to be helpful.
Every time I went back to Romania after the revolution, I’d
make it a point to visit the village I grew up in, and it was inevitable that I
would hear stories of the Duduman boys and their rebellious years, each story
ending with the requisite, “You should have seen them when they were young. I
can’t believe it’s the same person.”
It’s not that I didn’t believe the core of the stories; I
just thought they were a bit exaggerated until one day, I was in a Zody’s
department store parking lot with my grandfather. Zody’s was a discount version
of K-Mart back in the day, which in its own right had been a discount version
of Montgomery Ward. My grandmother had bought him a Botany 500 shirt from
there, a brand which by that time had fallen out of favor, and they had them on
clearance for a whopping three dollars. He liked the feel and fit of it, so we
went back to get a few more.
As we were getting ready to leave, a man began to yell
something about denting his Volkswagen Beetle, parked a few spots away from our
car, even though we hadn’t gone near it. My grandfather asked what the man
wanted, and I told him. My grandpa shook his head, and we turned to leave, but
the man just kept yelling and started walking toward us.
I’d never seen the other side of my grandfather, the side I’d
heard stories about. He’d been a believer for many years by the time I came
along, and all I’d ever known was the gentle side of him, but as the man came
closer, yelling and wagging his finger, I saw my grandfather’s jaw muscles
working and a look flash in his eyes that I’d never seen before. He didn’t
bunch his fists or peacock; he didn’t become outwardly aggressive, just a look
passing over his face, and evidently, the man saw it too because he stopped
midstride, raised his hands, and said, “You know what, sorry, perhaps I was
mistaken,” then turned and walked to his car.
It was years later that I realized the old man was trying to
wiggle off the cross, and though my grandfather had always been the gentlest
man I’ve ever known, his capacity for violence was real and true, lending
credence to all the stories I’d heard.
That’s what the Spirit of the Lord does: He inhabits, and He
transforms, from glory to glory, continually molding us into His likeness.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 3 November 2024 | 11:06 am
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