Ministers Desk 16th September 2012

This week I share with you the final insights of Gordon MacDonald on how to spot a transformed Christian.  The call to follow Christ is a journey to become ever more like him and less like the world that we live in.  “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).  For this reason we need some signs or markers to help identify how we are continuing to grow.  Please prayerfully reflect on these insights as they apply in your life. 

“Appreciates that suffering is part of faithfulness to Jesus. ‘I will show him how much he will suffer for my sake,’ God says of Saul of Tarsus. ‘Count it all joy (if you suffer),’ writes James. ‘He has given you the privilege to suffer for him,’ writes Paul.”

“‘Everything I know that's important,’ a friend said to me recently, ‘I learned in suffering. Suffering comes from many sources—even our own stupid mistakes. But whatever its source, the transforming believer does not complain, does not seek pity, does not become embittered. Rather he listens; he trusts; he offers his experience for the benefit of others.”

“Is eager and ready to express the content of his faith. Allow me to differentiate between those who select times to ‘do evangelism’ and those who are more likely to express their faith in the serendipitous events and encounters of everyday life. Of course, both are valid.”

“The transformed Christ-follower seeks, even prays for, opportunities to arise in the most natural of ways to communicate one's devotion to Christ and his capacity to offer a new way of life.”

“Overflows with thankfulness. And that implies prone toward cheerfulness.  Some of us (me, for example) needed to learn the exercise of thankfulness. Our default pattern is to simply receive, to take, as if we are entitled and deserve the generosity of others.”

“But now and then comes along that unusual transforming person who literally walks through the day looking for things to be thankful for. With each expression of thanks, they press value on what someone (or God himself) has done. They believe that no human transaction is complete until it is covered with appreciation.”

“Has a passion for reconciliation. This might be the highest characteristic of maturing believers. They bring people together. They hate war, violence, contentiousness, division caused by race, economics, gender, and ideology. They believe that being peaceable and making peace trumps all other efforts in one's lifetime.”

“’Something there is that doesn't love a wall,’ Robert Frost wrote. He could have been describing the transforming Christian who is mightily stirred into action when he sees those dividing walls that separate people, each of whom was made uniquely and loved by God.”

“It is here that you see Jesus living in others. You see his eye on the one others have ignored. You see him lifting the fallen one, elevating the insignificant one. What an incredible example he is to exploitive and arrogant people who walk through every day dividing and diminishing people all about them. The transforming Christ-follower knows this natural human tendency and seeks God's power to replace it with another tendency: redeeming, healing love.”