A Disciple Is Changed by Jesus
The Lord - who is the Spirit - makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2 Corinthians 3:18
The next five words in Jesus call to discipleship speak to a process of transformation. Discipleship involves Jesus molding our hearts to become more like his. He invites us to follow him and says he will make us into something different than we were before. Jesus loves us enough to meet us as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way. He wants to make us more like him. A disciple of Jesus is changed by Jesus. Not only do we make a mental decision to follow Jesus; we must also be in a process of transformation; a work takes place in our hearts and affections.
A disciple of Jesus is changed by Jesus.
This is what the bible calls sanctification. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus transforms his disciples into something new, people who are different than they were before they began following him. We are being conformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) as God is transforming us from one degree of glory to another in Jesus image (2 Corinthians 3:17–18).
It’s so important for us to remember that we are always a work-in-progress. We wrongly believe that we have to have it all together or completely clean up our lives before following Jesus. We then get discouraged once we have accepted the invitation because we often fail in many ways. We think that God gives us just enough grace for salvation and it's somehow our job to take it from there in order to continue as Jesus’ disciple.
Take heart when looking at the first disciples. They were not spiritual giants; they were regular guys with the same selfish, sinful struggles we all have. They were chosen by Jesus because he had a clear vision of who they could become. But their willingness to drop everything and follow Jesus also meant allowing him to unmake them and then remake them into his image—as his disciples.
This process of transformation can be discouraging, depressing, and even painful at times. So much so that we are often tempted to give up and leave Jesus. We come to Jesus just as we are, so we want to be affirmed just as we are. But Jesus isn’t in the business of making broken people feel better about their brokenness; he wants to heal us. He doesn’t just want to call us righteous, he wants to actually make us righteous. And as we stumble along, we continue to grow and he does his work in us. Jesus is teaching us to love God and others. Jesus is shaping us to be more like him.
This second attribute of a disciple is a heart response to the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Christ makes his home in our hearts and our roots grow deep into God’s love, making us strong. He gives us the power to glimpse how wide, how long, how high and how deep his wonderful, transforming love is. It’s a love too great to understand cognitively; but real enough to experience in our everyday lives. It is in this process that we are being made complete, with all the fullness and power that comes from God. Discipleship involves transformation at the deepest levels of our understanding and affections. Through the Holy Spirit, through the Word, and in relationship with God and his people, this process of transformation becomes an eternal reality. To be a disciple is to be changed by Jesus.
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