How different should you be?

There’s such a constant mantra, complete with correlating flow of social media memes, telling people that not only are they fine just the way they are, but God accepts them just the way they are.

None of us are fine just the way we are, and God receives us just the way we are with a demand that we not stay that way.

So just how different should we be?

Let’s get to the answer of that while working our way through just how much change are we responsive to:

FOSSILIZATION. Some of us are completely adverse to change. We would rather become fossilized as we are than be different … in most ways. But this position is a minority one. You probably don’t know anyone whose home is an exact replica of the early 1970’s, and they probably don’t wear bell bottom pants, have bouffant hair styles, and use words like “groovy.” Most of us are at least willing to make small, incremental changes as the world around us continues to change.

COPING. A lot of us don’t want ourselves to be the center of change, but want our circumstances to change. So we’re more prone to search for coping mechanisms to try to weather the circumstances assaulting us.

CHANGE. Regardless of how resistant to change you are, there will be times in your life you will not only understand a need for change, but you’ll want it. Maybe not a lot, but you’ll be responsive to, and cooperative in, making personal changes. This kind of change is like keeping your favorite model car going — you’ll at times have to replace some parts, get news tires, and even a paint job might be called for at some point. There’s some changes going on, but you’re really making them to keep the preferred model running.

TRANSFORMATION. Many people misunderstand what God wants regarding change from us. That’s because they think God only wants “change.” It kind of sounds like that as we read through the New Testament, especially when we run across exhortations from the Apostle Paul and others who tell us to “take off” something and “put on” something, to not do “this” anymore but to start doing “that” — to change. While the Bible does teach us about changes God wants us to make, it also reveals the scope of change God actually demands of us: transformation.

Perhaps its our resistance to change that leads us to even tamp down what God means by transformation. We minimize the transformation scripture calls for in following Christ. We think of it only as being transformed from death to life (“being saved”), but it’s greater than that. It’s being transformed from death to the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Our salvation through Jesus Christ is not the end goal of change for us, transformation as required by God is.

How different should you be? Something like this …

“But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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 3:16-18.

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ,” Ephesians 4:11-13.

“Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did,” 1 John 2:6.

“For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps,” 1 Peter 2:21.

How different should we be? Our greatest aim should be to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to be like Christ. That will take you a lifetime of following Jesus so that, once you are with Him, that objective will finally be completed. But the entirety of this life is to be a continuing journey toward that goal.

That means we can’t settle for being a fossil, for just coping with life’s circumstances, or making minor changes. We’ll have to live life in full cooperation with the Holy Spirit so that we incrementally get closer to the goal of being transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

Scotty