Thoughts on Change and the Pain of Becoming More Like Christ

This topic has been on my mind for a good year now. And for a good year now God has been working some deep change into me. And it's painful, to see oneself. Sometimes it's so painful it feels like someone took a meat tenderizer to our hearts. But we must yield to the potter's hand as He attempts to make me a little more like Christ. Now looking back not just over the last couple of years but over 21 years of trying to follow God I see some very important things about transformation and Christlikeness. Here are my thoughts.

1. The human race IS in fact a fallen race; corrupt, fleshly, and sinful. We need a savior. We cannot save ourselves. We also need power. That power God sent to us by His Spirit. The Spirit's role is to make us more like Christ.
2. Christ is perfect. He is the only sinless human soul to ever walk this dusty Earth. He is everything we are not, but everything we truly want to be like. He is our role-model, but He is also our friend and now even our brother, for we have the same Abba Father, who adopted us and gives us a NEW life. But what is this new Life? It is a Life of ongoing change.
3. There is an eternal part of each of us -- our own spirit -- and there is a flesh part of us -- our own soul. God aims to change both parts. He changes the eternal spirit within us the very moment we accept -- by faith -- that God sent His Son to atone for our sins. This eternal part of us is changed completely into a new creation and we immediately have a new identity which we can now walk in. We are adopted, forgiven, and saved for all eternity. The flesh part of us needs a lot of work, however. God's ongoing work on our flesh to make us more like Christ in character and in action does not have a bearing on our eternal security. That is done, as I said, through Christ's sacrifice for our lives. It does have a bearing on our quality of LIFE, our usefulness to God, and our impact and role within God's Kingdom.
4. God does in fact WANT to change the flesh part of us as well, and make us more like His Son. He sent His Son not only as an atoning sacrifice but to give us an example, and to teach us, how to LIVE like Him -- but to do so would require an on-going change in our hearts.  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. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT) 
5. We have a choice as to whether we will yield to God's work in our lives to transform us. God will not force that change on us. We can indeed resist His hand and remove ourselves from the potter's wheel. I do not think this means we cease to be saved. Some do. I think God's grace extends to those who love Him and believe in His Son but for one reason or another -- perhaps a difficult childhood, or harsh current circumstances, or hearing poor teaching -- it is difficult to let the Spirit change us.
6. God seeks to change us by using both our personal, intimate relationship with Him and in our corporate relationships with one another. 
7. The greatest strength needed to let God work on our hearts comes from fully knowing and accepting who we are in Christ. As I mentioned in #2 above, we have a new identity from the very moment we have Faith in what our Father has done for us. Knowing who we are IN Christ is what gives us the security to become more LIKE Christ. The more we accept by faith that our eternal spirit has been made new (past tense) the more we can confidently let God change our temporary flesh (future tense) in order to make it more useful. It is vital that every one us BELIEVE in the finished work of Christ on the cross or putting our own flesh on the cross will be pointless. We are a NEW creation and at the same time we are being transformed into His likeness. 
8. God has also set in place a corporate expression of His Son -- the Body of Christ and the ecclessia, the church. We are surrounded by people. And God does indeed want "a people." He always has. From the moment He commissioned Moses to tell Pharoah to "let my people go" God has chased after His Church. All believers in the world -- all of those who "call upon the name of the Lord" -- are saved and are part of the Body of Christ. But then there are those God puts in our immediate path. These are part of our local expression of the church. All believers within our circle of friends are part of this church. God does not see the church names, church buildings, and church programs that we see. He just sees "a people" and declares to Satan still today, "Let my people go!"
9. The greatest barrier to God working on our hearts comes from one another. Even though God's plan is perfect in that He would join us together with a common purpose and fill us all with a common Spirit, His Spirit, God has also made it clear He wants to partner with us to fulfill His will and advance His Kingdom. His ultimate goal is LOVE, for He Himself IS love. This is where we completely get in the way -- our fallen flesh that is. We become a barrier to God's change in one another when we are judgmental -- or when we fail to see others the way God's see others. I have been in situations -- in churches -- where there is a spirit of judgementalism hanging over the body and this spirit keeps people in bondage. In the times I've had people try to show me things about myself with a heavy-handed judgement I could not see. Judgement creates a blockage to the Spirit's work. But in the times I've had brothers and sisters love me and see me with God's eyes I was free to look at my flesh and yield it to God's work of change. Unfortunately, I have also been on the giving end of this judgement, and still fight against it today. Thankfully, God delivered me from an attitude of judgment but there is always the on-going work of seeing one another as fully saved -- as a New, Spiritual, Creation. And there is the on-going work of fully LOVING one-another and giving one another the acceptance and grace to have a fallen flesh that God is working on. God extends this acceptance and grace to me and to you. So we must also extend it to one another.
10. Helping one another change and become more like Christ is a tender, delicate, and loving affair. We have to exercise incredible patience while showing one another complete love and acceptance. We can never brow-beat, Bible-bang, or bully another person into change. These methods are always counter productive, or if they appear to be successful they are only that -- appearance. Down deep the person who changes for any other reason besides "God has done this work in my heart" runs the risk of becoming insecure or worse -- self-righteous. Does this mean we never say "hard" things to one another? No. But my best friends are those who simultaneously FULLY accept who I am with my weaknesses while at the same time are honest brothers who will tell me like it is. 

The most important thing to remember in all this is none of us are perfect, and none of us will ever reach full Christ-like-ness in this life-time. We will always be on the potter's wheel. But as we are on that wheel we must never remove God's hands on another person and replace them with our own. God is working on you and on me. We are on different wheels, turning at different speeds, and with a different amount of pressure and depth which God is applying. As we look over at one another we must look on with LOVE and acceptance, realizing that ALL change is painful, some much more than others. We cannot look over with judgement, thinking things like 'Oh, I already made that change. What's taking you so long?' We must look always to the change going on right now, in our own lives. And IF God wants us to speak to another about change we should do so with great fear and trembling. We should crawl to one another on our knees, with great humility. We should offer our insights and criticisms as if the Lord might strike us down for being judgmental. Because .... he just might. 

Fortunately, our spirits have already been made NEW -- We are HIS! Do you hear that? WE ARE HIS!! We belong to Christ. We are God's children. If you have children you know they all need to change in some way, and we loving try to help them do so. But their pace of change does not change who they are --- MY children; YOUR Children. It is the same with life in God. First we recognize there is NOTHING that can change the fact we are accepted and forgiven just the way we are. But being accepted and forgiven just the way we are is precisely what gives us the courage to let the power of God change us into some which we are not. And our role with one another is exactly the same -- first we ACCEPT one another just the way we are, and second we loving work with God's Spirit together as one Body to all become a little more like Christ today and tomorrow. 

May we accept that God pours out His LOVE and acceptance into our hearts and may we accept one another in the same way.