God loves us to much to leave us the way we are, and He paid too high a price to settle for our complacency. His mission is simple with profound consequences: “You shall be perfect.” The Father’s wooing call is a two-edged sword that meets our willingness with love surgery, paring the callus from our hardened hearts. There is pain, as this metaphor implies, for we are being changed from something we have been taught to love – our Self with its self-interests – into something we don’t quite yet fathom, the image and nature of our Lord. The cauldron of adversity is God’s mold, and involves pressure as the name implies: Some blessings leave bruises. We struggle with this God who is hell-bent on our perfection, allowing life’s circumstances and the powers of darkness to whack away at our fledgling mustard-seed faith as He pulls down our strongholds of worldly desires, the modern day Egyptian “flesh-pots.” But struggling is good; it’s God’s Binky to help our wisdom teeth break skin so we can masticate solid spiritual food. And make no mistake this is more about God’s allowing than satan’s power. If God isn’t in control, will then He is not sovereign and our faith is in vain.
God does not want to change us, a snip here and a tuck there, He wants complete metamorphosis (Greek: metamorphoo, translated transformed in Rom. 12:2), an extreme makeover -- the Caterpillar into a Butterfly kind -- only our Cocoon is the cross. The transformation process never stops in this life, although it gets easier. The more God’s love leavens our heart the more we rise to the occasion, recognizing God’s hand in every circumstance of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As we behold God’s love for us His love seeds begin to sprout in us and we become what we behold, we become loving. Who and what we become flows out of transformation, from the inside out, as our actions reflect a mind renewed to pattern on things above, and a heart full of God’s love.
God’s eternal purpose, our transformation, has never changed and cannot be challenged or thwarted in any way. Transformation takes our eyes off of the world’s baubles and bangles glittering with death and decay, and focuses our attention on all that really matters, God. What we are in Him is the only lasting reality of this life, the only thing that transcends death. We can hide out in the wine-press but God’s will always finds us, He is purposeful and relentlessly determined. Constrained by His love, we are continually being conformed by degrees into godliness, into His glory. Our volition is the key to transformation and establishes its pace. Time-outs and earthly-mindsets impede progress but His love will prevail, provided our heart is willing. Submission to God as He "wills and does in us His good pleasure" produces a lifestyle not a label.
SOME BLESSINGS LEAVE BRUISES
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