I really want to be more like Christ than I am. I want to pray, love and forgive more like He does.  But the change I see in my life seems infinitesimal and on some days nonexistent. But what I need to understand is that my efforts to change my life are for naught. I can’t change me. I need to let my maker change me.

In a former ministry we had a brother who was renowned for transforming ordinary cars into serious racing machines. He rebuilt and super-charged engines, welded roll-bars, stronger engine mounts and a made a host of other changes. None of those cars changed themselves; they needed to be changed by their designer and maker.

I am in the same situation. I can’t change me, so I need to place myself in the hands of the One who can. My focus on Jesus is the task that falls to me. In prayer, in meditation –I need to enter His presence asking Him to transform me in the context of the renewing of my mind.  Basically, I need to bring my chassis into His garage and let Him totally rebuild me.

For this to occur, I have been called on to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus. As I keep following, as I keep watching the way He interacts and blesses, the way He loves and forgives, then His nature will enter my life. Hey, it worked well with His first twelve followers.

I am convinced that this is the reality of the picture of a disciple standing in a dark room, trying to look through a veil to see the image in a mirror. As the veil is lifted, he or she is then able to see that the image in the mirror is Jesus. As the disciple continues to look intently into the image of Christ, a transformation begins to gradually take place. But the image in the mirror stays the same. It is the disciple being transformed by the Spirit. The text reads “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18 ESV). And it still comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

So, let’s keep focusing on the One we long to be like, as the Spirit transforms us.

Because He lives,


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