TRANSFORMATION

Dear Rev.Liliana McDermott, I thank God for his love and goodness he demonstrated when He allowed us to know each other. I believe it is for a divine purposes. I feel that one of the purposes is to exchange notes meaning the deep understanding of His word.
I was inspired by the Holy Spirit to share my Transformation expeience and how God has imparted my life as I walk in obedience, the path that He called me to walk.
Today let us begin with the subject of TRANSFORMATION
Transformation is the experience of knowing that at some point in life God is touching us and making us a different person. Transformation is the experience of finding emptiness replaced with fullness and vitality.
Transformation involves the discovery of “something else” in a life already built on a strong faith. The process of transformation is experienced through important turning points or moments of transformations in spiritual life. On each of these transformations we experience something new in our relationship with God
My first transforming moment came to me through reading a book called Deeper Life in the Spirit.
The reading of this book was a turning point for me. But the reading of this book called me to a life of holy living. I was moved in heart, mind, and spirit to commit my life to God at an early life in a way I never imagined possible.
My second transforming moment came at a prayer meeting where I was new and so very unwilling. But it was the place where I experienced encounter with God, filled with the Holy Spirit, never to be the same.
I experienced a new relationship with God while listening to someone teaching on the book of Romans chapter seven.
“For I do not understand my own actions- I am buffed, bewildered. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe (which my moral instinct condemns)” Though I was frustrated, defeated, and cowed down, though I was not able to do what I knew was right and acceptable to God, though I found himself doing the things I knew were sinful, yet my life was transformed when I was filled with the Holy Spirit and power.
The Holy Spirit enabled me to control my life. I did what I knew was right. I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt a trust, and an assurance was given to me that Christ had taken away my sins and weaknesses. I began to pray with all my might for those who were going through the same experience and frustrations. God is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness.
My third transforming moment came when I began to preach the Gospel enabled by the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders, where many were healing, and others gave their life to Christ.
This transformation required me to change my belief that one is able to change and live a life pleasing to God without being filled with the Holy Spirit. But the scripture says
“Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the rusts of the flesh.
When I accepted this task and agreed to change my thinking, I discovered that I had developed a genuine compassion and love for my desperate listeners.
The energy of the new experience has carried me through decades of remarkable work on behalf of the World’s spiritually and destitute people.
My fourth transformation moment came when I became aware that what I received from the Lord Jesus was Eternal Life. A life that is completely different from any other life. It is a Divine life with very high quality, one that is eternal meaning everlasting. You can’t find it anywhere. You can’t buy it with money. It is so precious. You can only receive it by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. You can find it if you find favor from God through the forgiveness of sins. When this Eternal Life enters a person, he is healed and transformed. He is saved and cleansed by the blood of Jesus, so clean that he is considered a new creation. And just as Christ healed all those who came to him with all manner of sickness, God is transforming us and empowering us so as to heal our lives and that of our community. The Bible is our primary source for understanding Christian spirituality. The Bible describes the source of transformations and the far-reaching dimensions of the new life God wills us to have.
SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION IS BIBLICAL
Let us take a look at what the scripture says to us concerning transformation in five passages.
The Angel of God appeared to Gideon at the Winepress (Judges 6: 11-34)
Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-12)
The Vision of Isaiah in the Temple (Isaiah 6:1-8)
The Samaritan Woman at the well (John 4:1-30)
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40)
We identify that God’s role is similar in each instance.
We identify in what ways are the spiritual needs of the characters similar.
We identify the paths each of the characters decided to follow.
Consider these ideas relating to the transformation of each of these biblical persons.
We can be transformed because God is acting before we reach out for new life
God seeks us for transformation. God called Gideon to be a hero of faith at a time when Gideon was faithless, hopeless, doubtful, fearful, and frustrated. His people were impoverished, chased from their homes and hiding in caves. Gideon would not have thought that transformation was anything possible. His life was in a crisis. He entered into a new relationship with God never to be the same. He finished as a transformed hero of faith recorded in the Book of Hebrews chapter eleven. God called Moses to be a leader at a time when Moses had his mind on something else.
The glory of God was in the Temple before Isaiah arrived. Jesus was at the well before the Samaritan woman came.
The Ethiopian Eunuch was studying the words of God’s prophet Isaiah before he sought to be baptized.
(The transformation of the Ethiopian official was aided by the book Isaiah produced after his own change).
We can be transformed when we dare to venture out for new life.
At first Moses did not want to heed God’s call. Moses preferred his safe, comfortable life.
However, Moses finally called on his faith to help him trust enough to strike out into the unknown and to follow God’s Will for his lives.
Isaiah went to the Temple at a time of national calamity. Shaken to his foundation by the tragic situation his people were enduring, Isaiah saw beyond the crisis and discovered something eternal in his meeting with God in the Temple . Isaiah knew that he was to be forever in a special relationship with God.
The Samaritan woman who visited with Jesus, a Jew crossed barriers of custom, race, and gender and became a new person. After she was transformed by the new experience, she was able to bring the people of her city to Jesus.
We can be transformed when we use our ability to discover the presence and the work of God in common things.
The four persons were going about their daily life when they acknowledged that something was happening.
They attended to God’s call. They responded to God’s call. Only in attention and response can an awareness of God’s call become something useful.
Some persons, like Moses experience dramatic callings. Others experience far less impressive calls. Yet all of us have the ability to discover the presence and the work of God in common things.
Few people experience God in burning bushes or smoke-filled temples. Our meeting with God may be quieter, like that of the Ethiopian Eunuch or the woman at the well. But these un-dramatic moments of transformation are vital, valid, and significant to the person who experiences them.
We become transformed when we follow a path we have not chosen for ourselves.
Gideon, Moses, Isaiah, the Samaritan woman, and the Ethiopian Eunuch all knew that they were losing an old life in order to find a better one. These five persons realized that their life was not what they wanted it to be. These five did not expect to encounter the presence of God. But God called them. However God called them to change their life and accept the invitation to become something more.
Can such transformation as these personalities experienced come to you? Can such transformation come to me?
We can praise God that such questions can be answered with a resounding “yes”. Indeed, a book describing the transformation experiences of individuals touched by the grace of God would be filled with chapters devoted to persons just like us. Some times transformation comes in what might be called Crisis Conversion. This is a single, intense moment of awareness. Persons who experience this are often stunned by the impact of that moment. They forget that many experiences over the years have helped them prepare for such an event.
Deeply emotional responses to something perceived as a personal word from God are often part of Crisis Conversion.
In other persons change occurs in a far less dramatic, but equally genuine, fashion. Transformation may take place so quietly that the realization that there is something new in one’s life may be as surprising as the newness itself.
Attendance at a Spiritual Formation Conference coming soon at Tulare Community Church , Tulare California is a provision and an occasion from God for a change and transformation to take place. What kind of transformation does the community of Tulare need?
The Holy Spirit reveals major obstacles to transformation in our life. Some will discover that one commitment is to the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the other is to a racial segregation as the “best way” for the people of Tulare to get along. I believe segregation commitment is your own bondage. Believe God for it to be broken during this transformation conference. A sudden, new feeling will come over you as you continually listen to God speak to you. For the first time you will face an opportunity and a need to meet that person you could not meet before. I know something new is about to happen to you all.
Jackson ’s Encounter with God
Jackson was rapidly losing his family, his friends, his business, and his life, to drugs. He was being destroyed as a person. Jack had a desperate need for transformation. I invited Jack to a Spiritual transformation retreat in the Sierra Mountains camp. Jack had a good time in the retreat. He did not talk much. He never spoke before any group as he would be an embarrassment to the group.
During the break time while we were standing in a circle outside, the Holy Spirit came upon Jack in a mighty way. He responded by playing Gospel music using a guitar. Suddenly Jack became the instrument God used to kindle the fire within us and many pleaded to have Jack visit their churches for ministry.
We drove back to Los Angeles together. As we parted with Jack his closing words to me were: “And now, thanks to you, but most of all thanks to Jesus, I am through with drugs. I am headed in a new direction.”
What happened with Jack was far-reaching in its effects and profound in its meaning. His transformation occurred because he was willing to venture out or to break away from the old mold of his life. The venturing out of Jack was quite simple on the surface. He went to a retreat to meet God and to be transformed by His power.
Consider these points about transformation experiences.
These accounts demonstrate that not all instances of transformation are outwardly spectacular.
On many occasions women and men are quietly changed into new persons. Finding out something new about a friend, helping someone, taking a walk alone, enjoying family fellowship, hearing beautiful music, or a thousand other simple experiences can be turning points for persons ready to make a change.
The Encounter illustrates that the action of God comes first before anything and everything we can do.
One of the most gracious things God does, through the Holy Spirit is to create a community where the possibilities for change are emphasized. The Holy Spirit created the caring spirit in me and others. The same spirit created a small group of men whose friendship became the focal point of change for Jack. Jack became aware of the action of God. He was sure that God’s gracious action came before even the first faint turning of any man or woman toward the new life Christ gives.
Jack regarded with absolute seriousness the words of Paul, “For by grace are you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God”( Ephesians .2:8)
The Stories are examples of persons who know that somewhere within themselves there is more to life than they are experiencing.
Some might say they were “under conviction” For Jack it was a desperate realization that his most cherished values- marriage, family, business- were about to go down the drain. But to the Tulare community it is an unsettling awareness of conflict between the undoubted white community to Christ and their rigid consignment of some of God’s people to second class citizenship.
The examples show that transformation is not something we can plan or map out. We must leave the direction to God.
Transformation is a change that is available to all God’s people. After the transforming experiences you will return to your same towns, attend your same churches, and pursue your same professional and business interests but with a difference. Jack displays a quiet evangelistic passion to share the word that brings new life to other persons as desperately troubled as he once was.
Let Us Decide
Decision-making is part of life. We face choices big and small every day. And every day the decisions we make shape our lives and the lives of those we love. We know that through our choices we make a difference. We make decisions at home-purchasing a house, moving from one home to another. We make decisions about family-whether it is children’s education, major expenditures, health care options or how we will respond to a crisis.
We make decisions in our work whatever our call-whether we are in the gospel ministry in a church-related vocation. We make decisions when we accept a position, when we are in the midst of an important work-related choice. At home and at work, we make decisions constantly and know that in these situations we need the wisdom of God and a sense of God’s direction. Let us have a vision of a new and transformed community in the valley with a greater measure of spiritual life, better fellowship, of love for one another, of justice, of drug-free neighborhood than it had before. Let us make a choice to be a better community with a far greater experience of spiritually transformed lives. Let us seek to be a transformed people who hear God as He speaks in simple common things.
TRANSFORMATION IS POSSIBLE ONLY WITH GOD’S FAVOR
Transformation is a favor from God. Favor is a gift from God. Favor is when God causes someone to desire to become a problem solver in your life. The Divine purpose of favor is to enable you to achieve your desired goal or assignment. Pursuing favor with God qualifies you to receive favor. Every success story contains the memories of God’s favor. You can not work hard enough to get everything you deserve. Any uncommon success will require uncommon favor from someone. That someone is the Holy Spirit in your life. The Favor, the infilling of the Holy Spirit is the secret of uncommon success in life and ministry. Therefore any uncommon favor should be pursued, requested and celebrated.
THE ACTIVITIES THAT BRINGS TRANSFORMATION
FAMILY WORSHIP
To worship is to acknowledge God’s worth, God’s will, and God’s way. The breath of God is the spirit of God. How does God work in our life? The Bible says God works in mysterious ways. To some God’s spirit rushes upon them like a mighty wind. To others God’s Spirit is a quiet refreshing presence. The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to fulfill the ministry of Christ in us. “I came that they might have life and that they might have it abundantly.
He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 10:10b; 8:12b)
FAMILY TRANSFORMATION
Family transformations require identification with our personal feelings. In a family crisis, the person who is feeling the pain in the family relationships is in fact signaling that something is wrong in the entire family unit. That which is wrong may be that the hurting person’s own growth as a person is being held back by the family’s life.
The person with the pain may be signaling that all the members of the family unit, those persons upon whom his or her survival is dependent, may be suffering pain, discomfort, or trouble. The healing of a hurting individual is directly related to and dependent upon the healing of the family unit.
In similar ways our need for transformation is signaled to us by various feelings of discomfort or pain we may or may not, recognize in ourselves.
As Christians we believe that a fundamental part of the spiritual life is the experience of being changed. Spirituality or transformation is a deeper awareness of God’s touch upon our personal life. With that touch comes a hunger and thirst to act out that awareness of God’s touch in our daily living.
This transformation is positive. It increases within us the joyous hunger and thirst for that closer relationship with God. Longing for the rich experience of transformation may be prompted by various feelings in a Christian’s life.
Boredom, a deep-seated weariness of mind and spirit, and anxiety, ill-formed, vague impressions that something is wrong, may be signals of the need for transformation. Guilt that we feel without knowing why may be another such signal. Persistent Anger is surely the signal that something within us is crying out for transformation.
We do not like these feelings. We may know that they have no valid foundation. But these feelings may be the heralds of God’s will for transformation. Descriptions of God as the one who searches for His own fill the Bible. The great leaders of our faith speak often of God as one who calls them in search of someone to send to find the lost.
God is restless until his people are at rest in true and right relationship with Him. God is always the greater one; the Holy one, high and lifted up, Creator, Spirit, and the Shepherd to whom our limited human terms are ascribed
In each of these roles and in many others,
God’s call invites us into life-renewing ties with Him, the source of life, the Spring of Light, the Way and the Truth.
Because God seeks us and stirs us, we can have faith, hope, and confidence that in time each of us will experience the transformation of our life. “We all are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes the Lord who is the Spirit” (2Corinthians 3:18).
Bishop Peter Mukangu,
P O Box 312,
La Mirada CA 90637
714-732-9369