Stages of Transformation

Chapter 6
Revelation

When a person comes to Christ, initially they will experience a type of euphoria, a first stage of transformation. It may not be the day they receive Christ; the day I received Christ I didn't feel anything. However, a few days later, I did. I got an incredible sense that the Lord was with me.

As a person progresses along the way, sinful actions and attitudes begin to be revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. For example, I was reading the Bible, and it said "A foul mouth is an abomination to the Lord." I swore worse than most truck drivers; probably every fifth word out of my mouth was a curse word. I read that and thought I shouldn't have a foul mouth anymore; that day I stopped swearing. To this day God has cleansed me from that habit. So often there may be an initial cleansing from somewhat superficial behaviors. But it is the first signs of God's power and life at work in the person.

But over time we tend to return to our old patterns--especially ones that are deeper rooted in our character. Some patterns change very little over time. We may dress them up so that they have a "Christian" flavor and are not offensive, but fundamentally they don't change. We could call these patterns "besetting sins," or "fortress sins." One of mine was bitterness; we'll be discussing this in greater detail later.

Why is this? Why do we tend to return to old patterns? Because we are comfortable with them. They work! They enable us to survive in a fallen world. As we walk through this world, we realize, "I will not trust that person next time, they hurt me." And so we develop sinful coping mechanisms to survive in a sinful world. We develop a world view that we think is correct. Then we develop mechanisms to accompany that world view.

So here I am, newly regenerated and I've stopped swearing. Did my view of the world change fundamentally? No; not fundamentally. God wants it to change, and that's going to be part of the process of Sanctification. Remember, Paul said, "Do not be conformed any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:2

Ephesians. 4:22-24 discusses putting off the old man and putting on the new, and you do that as your mind is renewed. This is a process; this is not a one-time event. Mind renewal is an ongoing process, and this is what we talk about when we talk about Sanctification. The rest of the book of Ephesians discusses some of the most basic patterns believers need to put off and new ones to put on. I have found these section of scripture very helpful in exposing such patterns as I work with new believers.

As new Christians come into the church they bring with them a sinful world view and sinful coping mechanisms. They have learned how to use those to survive in a fallen world. They will often be quite fearful of making changes in these coping patterns. Sanctification involves seeing these processes of fragmentation and decay reversed, and replaced using the cycle of renewal to put on the new man. The cycle of renewal begins with Regeneration. But it progresses through the steps of Revelation, Repentance, Restitution. Restitution often brings more revelation of deeper sin (at the attitude and affection level) which leads to greater transformation, ultimately resulting in Renewal of the mind.

This chapter we will focus on revelation (or illumination) and specifically what keeps people from seeing the light. A good deal of responsibility of the church in community is turning on the lights so, when God opens the eyes of blind men, they can see.

One thing that new Christians need to understand is that they return to old patterns of sin because of one thing: their flesh. When a person comes to Christ and he gets a new life, he still has his old flesh. When is he going to lose that flesh? When he dies, or when Jesus returns. But until then he has to deal with a deceptive and crafty flesh. I am convinced that flesh does not change much over the course of our lives. Romans 7 where Paul is giving his personal testimony of his ongoing battle with his flesh ends with the statement: "Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ." Paul continues on in Romans 8:23."We ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, awaiting our adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies."

When is Christ finally going to deliver us from these bodies of flesh? Not in this world. It is going to be a constant battle; Romans 7-8 is the description of the normal Christian life. It is not one of ultimate victory over sin; it is one of step-by-step existential righteousness being secured in the desert, in the wilderness, fighting the battle against the flesh (Cf. Galatians 5:16f). We need to understand that. Those who are living the Christian life looking for the "quick fix" will be in for a rude awakening, because our tendency is to sink back to our flesh; our flesh never dies until we do.

So how are we to progress upward? The cycle of renewal begins with revelation, and revelation comes primarily through the Word of God. But our progress is not simply a matter of reading the Bible and memorizing scripture or learning different doctrines. Growth is not primarily through cognition, but through our experience of God (Cf. Ephesians 3:14-21). Our growth (as well as our ability to fight our fleshly tendencies) is largely dependent on how we view God, how well we know Him (as opposed to knowing ABOUT Him), and how we walk in faith based on that experiential knowledge.

God is seen by many older Christians as an Egyptian taskmaster; He wants our obedience and nothing else; He wants our righteousness. Not true. God is a proud and loving Father, who is proud of His children. He is pleased when we obey Him. But He does not disown us when we fail Him. What kind of Father would that be!?

As He brings us through these times of trial and difficulty, He loves us and cares about us. He brings us to these times of trouble because He wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ. He knows what is better for us. Look at Job. He was a righteous servant. God calls Job, “My servant, Job, throughout the book. But whereas Job was righteous, he had some flawed views of God. God allowed the trials to bring Job to a whole new understanding of Himself. And his latter state was far superior to his former.

He loves us and wants our love, not simply our obedience. This was the failing of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal son. That parable, interesting enough, was told to Pharisee's. I once heard the application to it that "God would rather see a dirty face than a clean back". How many older Christians are content to know God afar off and even envy new believers who have turned from a life of sin to a personal relationship with a living God/

Once we understand the loving nature of our heavenly Dad, then we can stand in His light and say, "God, you knew I had this 'dirty shirt on, even when I couldn't see it; thank you for pointing it out to me. I'm ready to take it off. Show me how to live like your son Jesus in this area of my life, so that I can be a son you will be proud of." This reaction is opposite one of shock and embarrassment when sin is exposed with the believer wondering what others are going to think.

God is never surprised when we sin. He knows when we are tempted and He knows when we will fail. Remember Jesus Himself knew that Peter would deny Him. But what did He do? He prayed for Peter that his faith would not ultimately fail, but that when he was restored he would strengthen the brethren. The way to make progress in sanctification is not by being ashamed of our sin, but rather seeking out God's help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). And then we will need to seek out other brothers and sisters, as well; Godly men and women who are going to be able to lend a hand. If we are to make progress in this walk with God, our view of God is important, and we need to honestly face our shortcomings. God is not surprised when we sin. God is never surprised. We may be surprised (that is part of the nature of revelation), but God never is.
So the problem with troubled Christians and Christians who need to grow is to learn how to grapple with their flesh. Galatians 5:13 gives us the definition of "Healing":

“Brothers, we are called to be free; but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, but rather serve one another in love."

The definition of "Healing" is a person who has so experienced God’s transforming work that he is able to serve others. This passage makes clear that a Christian has two choices: he can serve himself, or he can serve God by serving others. How easy is that choice to make as we walk through life, moment by moment? Not very, according to verses 16-17:

"So I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh; for flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you may not do what you please."

What type of relationship does the spirit have to the flesh? The word translated above “conflict” means Deep-seated hostility, animosity. Every time we make a spiritual decision our flesh is going to be antagonized. The flesh seeks to serve itself; the spirit seeks to serve God. Every Christian experiences this battle within them.

We can illustrate it this way: think of a person like an automobile. There is a rear-wheel drive (here I betray my age), a drive train, and a transmission. And when a person comes to Christ, he has two engines in him. Before Christ he only had one, but now he has two. We find them in verse 17: the flesh and the spirit; two power sources. These two power sources hate each other. What are they trying to do? They're fighting for control. But the driver is the only one who can control the choice; the driver is the one who must decide

which power source he's going to use.

He exercises that choice through the transmission, which we call the Will. Galatians 5 is appealing to the Christian not to shift into "flesh gear". However, which desires do you think are the most immediate and thus seem to be the most powerful? The flesh! As a matter of fact, in Galatians 5:16 it says, "Do not gratify the desires of the flesh." The word “desires” is very powerful; the word has the idea of craving. "If I don't get that, I'm going to die!" Have you ever worked with alcoholics or other addicts? When you do, you understand those kind of cravings. They really think that they'll die if they don't have one more drink. But if they do, they'll be okay. The flesh is deceptive. Do you believe that if an alcoholic really has just one more drink, they'll really be okay? Of course not; the flesh never has enough. You could spend your whole life investing in your flesh, and your flesh will never be satisfied. It always wants more. And much of the world has bought into that deception. Capitalism is built on that! You always want more and more. The flesh is never satisfied. The flesh's power lies in its ability to deceive the person that a little will be enough. It holds out a promise of satisfaction which it cannot deliver.

So the desires of the flesh are intense, and antagonistic to the spirit. We are never free from them while we live in this body (Cf. Romans 7:24, 8:23). Many times a person will say, "I didn't want to make a decision that I wasn't at peace with." Many times the decisions we make will not be ones of peace, at least peace with our flesh. Most of the intense spiritual decisions I've made have not been done in peace. There is all sorts of agony going on in my soul, because in most cases these decisions involve a crucifixion of the flesh. But a decision made in the Spirit will lead to a peace that passes all understanding.

But if the flesh is the most immediate, what is the deepest desire? A glance at Romans 7:22 reveals that the deepest desire of a regenerate person is to please God, because that's who you are. We discussed in the last chapter how if any man is in Christ he is a new creature. He is still susceptible to lies and deceptions, and even to return to old patterns; but if he is truly in Christ, there's something in him that will never allow him to have the peace and joy he used to have in the sins he enjoyed before he became saved. Before Christ he had only one engine; the flesh engine. He may have had a lot of peace in his sin as a non-believer. But the only place of peace for the Christian is in the heart of God. No matter how hard the road of the Spirit is, and how much pain is involved, we need to realize that a person in Christ will never be satisfied until he or she come to that place of rest in surrender to the Lord.

It's important to know that a human being is not a spiritual schizophrenic. The diagram below represents how a new believer might think of himself based on the discussion above.

But the flesh and spirit are not equal halves. They are both present, but they are not equal. As a matter of fact the flesh can sometimes look stronger, through temptation and trials. But the Spirit is always there, whispering "Turn back; turn back; you know better." And if the Christian understands this, which voice should he listen to? The spirit's! Why? Because it's who he is! He may not feel as though that's who he is, but it's true! Therefore, when I say that the choosing should reflect the identity, why should it? Because we should always choose in accord with who we are! A better picture is the one below based on Paul’s description of his struggle in Romans 7:21ff.

Conflict is inevitable because the flesh is always there, and sometimes it can confuse us and deceive us. But we need to understand who we are. I am a child of my Father! Should I act as His son? Of course I ought to; why would I act any other way? Paul says in Romans 6, "Shall we continue in sin so that Grace may much more abound? How can it be?" God forbid! You died, and your life is now with Christ. Have you died? Yes! We have been placed in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, and our choosing should reflect that.