Thoughts from "Ongoing Call" Weekend (#2)

Isn't this tree stunning??? It was in the front yard of the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at last weekend. It has nothing to do with this post, I just wanted to share it with you. :)

The second concept that challenged me last weekend was this.

We need: TRANSFORMATION by the Word, NOT simply information from the Word.

9 years ago I could not have sat under the session this was taught in. That one statement would have sent me running. (Although I would have sat in my seat, my mind would have been somewhere else!)

You see, like so many Christians I had been sitting in church and doing all the things on the “Good Christian Woman’s Checklist”. However, I was ignoring the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life. I refused to shut up long enough to listen because what He had to say I did not want to hear.

Then it happened. I was challenged in an in-depth Bible study to ask God for a heart that loved Him more. I started doing that and before long I could not get enough.

His Word was always alive and active (Heb. 4:12) but to me, it had been years since I had felt it like this. Every passage was new. I was realizing that this was not just a “good book” to live by. It was the very food I needed, and the water I craved. His Word became LIFE to me.

He transformed my thinking. I heard someone once say that “God changed my stinkin’ thinkin’!” THAT my friend is what transformation by the Word of God is all about.

Romans 12 tells us that we should not be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. (That is only done by being in the Word) Then we will be able to discern what God’s will is. You can’t know what God thinks if you aren’t in God’s word.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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.” (ESV)

From one degree of glory to another. Transformation. It’s part of the process of a growing Christian. God is constantly removing the things that are not beneficial and replacing them with things that can only come from Him.

James 1:21 is precious to me. It says to put off all the junk, filthiness, wickedness….and here’s what excites me: RECEIVE the implanted word. Receive the alive and active word of God and allowing it to change us, from the inside out.

Transformation, not simply information. That’s what I pray you have experienced in your walk with the Father.