Transformed By GodExemplo

DAY 4: Transformed by the Spirit

Despite what we are told by various self-help books, the reality is that none of us can truly transform ourselves into all God wants us to be. There is nothing we can give up that will make us as holy as Christ, no works that we can do that will make us as good as Christ. None of us can overcome our sins and shortcomings on our own – this can only be achieved by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Before his crucifixion Jesus said to his followers, ‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth’ and that he ‘lives with you and will bein you’ (John 14:16–17 NIV). The transformative power of the Spirit was evident to all on the day of Pentecost when we are told the Holy Spirit came to the Apostles like a violent wind and tongues of flame.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in a myriad of human languages, which were foreign to them, and so reached those gathered from every nation in Jerusalem.

During his time on earth, Jesus told Nicodemeus, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit’ (John 3:5 NIV), which is why, in some denominations, this baptizing by the Spirit is referred to as being ‘born again’. We are so transformed by the Spirit that we are literally born again, made anew in the image of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the power God uses to renew our minds, to change our hearts and transform our spirits. For some people this may be a dramatic mountain-top experience; an experience of the presence of God so incandescent that it is as if we stand on the border between the natural and the supernatural. For others, this spirit-filled transformation may be a more gradual anakainosis that takes place over a lifetime. Whatever your experience, you cannot but be changed by the presence of the Spirit of God.

Reflection: How have you experienced the Spirit of God in your life? (This may have been a mountain-top moment of infilling or a more subtle prompting of the Spirt.) What impact has this had on your life and how you see the world?