A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Purity - now there's a great concept. Everybody loves purity. From the junkie buying heroin on the street, to the savvy investor buying gold on the open market. Turns out, we all want … purity.
This week on the program, we're chatting about the Miracle Makeover that God has planned for you … and for me. Because God is a miracle-working God. He has the power and the desire to make an amazing difference in your life.
Mostly we go to God and pray – God, can you change this, can you deal with this obstacle, can you help me in this circumstance, can you please provide this money, make this happen …. We're always asking God to do something, to fix something, to provide something out there.
The problem, in our mind, is always out there with other people or with the situation or with the circumstances. Come on, let's be honest here. Rarely if ever do we take responsibility before God and ask Him to change us, to work on us, to help us overcome our blind spots and our failings and our wrong attitudes and our selfishness and ….
We know the score. At least half of our problems in life – at least half, probably more – are all to do with our attitudes, our mistakes, and our perspective. How often do we take responsibility for those before God?
That's why we're in the middle of this series of ten messages called God's Miracle Makeover for You. Because He is that miracle-working God who wants to help us become all He's made us to be. And that to me is such an awesome message.
Theologians will talk about repentance, and sanctification. Good oh. Me, I prefer to think of myself as someone who needs help – like a physio in rehabilitation – to restore the full function of all I've been given. And, try as I might, there are plenty of times when I can't help myself.
And often, it's because I don't even see the mistakes I'm making. Often I'm completely clueless that I'm blundering in somewhere, and it's not until I'm reading God's Word and the Holy Spirit touches me deep inside somewhere that I realise. This is the miracle of transformation in Christ – it's the radical change that God wants to bring into our lives.
And today we're chatting about purity, because it's one of those areas where we have a great propensity to be blind to our failings. Now, purity is a great concept and whether we realise it or not, it's something that we value extremely highly. Hmm. Well … sort of. It turns out that you and I can be very selective about purity.
Let's just have a think about when it is that we really value purity. I used the example earlier of the addict buying heroin. They're spending money; they want to make sure they get what they're paying for – as terrible as that purchase is.
Buying gold is the same thing. If I'm paying a huge amount of money for just a single ounce of gold, I want to make sure that it's 99.99% pure, otherwise I'm being ripped off.
Buying a drink at a bar – do you want the drink to be watered down, or do you want it to be … pure? When you're dealing with someone in business, do you want them to have hidden, ulterior motives, or … pure motives? When you're choosing your life–long soul mate do you want them to be promiscuous, or … pure?
In each one of those instances the answer is blindingly, glimpsingly obvious. We want purity. In fact, when we're on the receiving end of the transaction or the relationship, we always want purity in the other party. Makes sense.
But what about when we're on the giving end? How highly do we value purity then? You're in a business transaction, and you want to close the deal on your terms. Do you bend the truth a little bit? Do you exaggerate slightly the advantages, play down the disadvantages? Sure, why not? It's business.
When you're filling out your tax return. Do you drop in a few low value deductions for which you don't have receipts because you never incurred the expenditure in the first place? Do you conveniently forget to declare some income that the tax department, really, is unlikely ever to find? Sure – why not, reduce your tax payment as much as you can?
It seems that when we're on the receiving end, we demand purity, but when the shoe's on the other foot, well – then we're prone to let ourselves off the hook rather easily. In fact most people will compromise on purity, if they think they can get away with it. That's the reality.
To God, purity is really, really important. Because He's pure. Everything about Him is pure. His love for us is pure. His intentions are pure. His passion for us to become more and more like Him … is pure. And should we ever doubt that, we need only gaze upon the Cross of Christ and what He suffered so that we might live. Never, ever will we see love purer than the love that we have from God through Jesus His son.
Have a listen to what God has to say about purity to you and me today – 1 John 3:1–10:
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God's seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.
He starts off by telling us about His amazing love – just in case we should forget that His love means that we are His children. And just as children grow up and mature, you and I are on a journey toward maturity – and it's a journey from impurity to purity. Have another listen: And all who have this hope in him, purify themselves, just as he is pure.
And through John, God does on here and gives us a sobering slap in the face about sin. Just in case you were planning on compromising, just a little bit on your purity, He makes it really clear. You can't have a foot in both camps people. You can't be a child of the devil and a child of God. It's either one or the other. You're either on a path towards purity, or you're not. So which one is it?
And just when you and I are starting to feel totally down because we know, don't we, that there's sin in our lives, just when we're about to throw our hands up in despair as we read this passage that says: if you're sinning you're in effect living out your life as a child of the devil – holy moly that's strong, that's not mincing words, that's cutting right to the quick – just at that moment, He gives us the answer, the only answer that there is to our dilemma of impurity:
The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
My friend Jesus is the answer. The only way to travel from impurity to purity, from sin to righteousness, from being a child of the devil to a child of the living God … is Jesus. He has the power. The power of the cross to forgive you. The power of His Spirit in every man, woman and child who believes in Him, the power for a new life through the empty tomb, the power to destroy the works of the devil.
If purity is something that you want to value as highly as God values it in you – the answer, the only answer – is to walk the walk, with …. Jesus.

The big thing that the makeup and beauty companies sell is deep cleansing. Hmm.  We all know that beauty is more than skin deep. There are times when you and I need truly deep cleansing.  The sort that you can only get from one Source.
Don't you love those makeup advertisements: Anti–ageing. Wrinkle reducing. Look ten years younger in just ten days. Achieve deep cleansing of your skin.
They promise the world. And all you women out there – well, a good many of you – you want to fall for this stuff, because you do want to look younger and you do want to look your best. And it's not just the lotions and potions they flog on television, right?
Many women spend huge sums of money on facials, exfoliation, masks, mud-masks even – all in the pursuit of what? Looking younger.
These cleansers and moisturisers they sell for a king's ransom, most of them cost a few pennies to make, then there's the massive cost of advertising and marketing, and let's not forget huge profit margin on top.
Deep … cleansing. Right. I know I'm only a bloke, and I apologise for that, but on that basis, I know I really don't get the whole beauty thing. For over half a century, a cake of soap and some hot water has pretty much given my skin all the deep cleansing that I've ever needed.
But, even I know that there's something incredibly special about feeling clean. Back in my military days we would go out on training exercises where we fought simulated battles for 4, 5 even 6 weeks at a time. And in that month, month and a half, you were lucky to get a shower and a change of clothes once, maybe twice.
So by the time we'd come back to barracks at the end of the exercise you were seriously on the nose – I mean, absolutely filthy dirty. I remember we'd been rolling in the dirt, fighting a war, rubbing black and brown and green camouflage cream into our faces, necks and hands so we'd blend into the bush. We were filthy.
And to this day – what, 35 years on now – I remember that feeling of getting those reeking clothes off and getting into a hot shower and scrubbing all that muck, and camouflage cream off. Of course it didn't all come off in the first shower, it was still embedded in the pores of your skin and under your fingernails for a week or two afterwards.
But that feeling of being really clean for the first time in weeks was utterly sensational. Whenever I hear that term "deep cleansing" that's what comes to mind. That sensational feeling of being clean.
Okay – it's one thing to be clean on the outside. Sure. Great feeling. But what about the inside. A lot of us – most of us – don't feel clean on the inside. Why? Well – because there's a lot of accumulated muck and grunge caking our emotions, our thoughts, our soul … our very being.
Maybe you think I'm overstating that a bit. The old-fashioned word for it is sin – but a lot of people don't like that word too much these days. What about baggage. Emotional hang–ups. Hurts. Inadequacies. Doubts. Fears. Scars. Blind spots. Recognise any of those in your life??
And what about the consequences of the stupid things that you've done in your life, that you're still doing in your life – ignoring your family, being selfish or touchy or being over bearing or controlling …
It's a pretty long list. And the quickest, easiest way to sum it up, is to use that small, four-letter word (that's what it is these days) – SIN.
Now depending on where each one of us is on the scale of maturity, we may either deny that we have any of that stuff going on in our lives, or we may be nodding – perhaps reluctantly – but nodding and recognising that this SIN thing is eating away at us on the inside. This muck is caked on thick and dirty like that camouflage cream – black and brown and green – used to be caked onto my skin.
And scrub as we will, somehow we can't wash it off. It just won't come off. Shakespeare had it right in Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1 when Lady Macbeth, sleepwalking, remembering the blood on her hands in conspiring to murder someone, looks down at her hands and exclaims:
Out damned spot, out I say! One, two, why then, 'tis time to do it. Hell us murky … Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh …
In her mind, in her heart, in her dreams, she couldn't get the blood off her hands; the guilt ate away at her … on the inside. And many, many people – whether they want to admit it or not – have that sense of guilt or perhaps shame or inadequacy eating away inside them.
It's not something we like to talk about. We hide it deep within, behind the façade of respectability and confidence. Behind the faces we put on. Behind the bravado and the apparent happiness, and the nice home and nice children and nice everything and yet … it eats away, it gnaws at our soul, as the guilt, the blood on our hands debilitates us just as it did Lady Macbeth.
We're on sensitive ground here aren't we? When we start to talk about it in this way, we come face to face with the deep reality … may I use the word now … our sin. You can't live an abundantly joyful life with that stuff going on, any more than I could have gone on to live a full, healthy life in my reeking clothes and with my cam cream still on and in my skin.
Imagine if, without a shower, I'd hopped in my car and driven down to the local shopping centre, sat down for a pizza at the pizza joint, wandered through the department store. It's not on. And nor is trying to live our lives with that muck caking our souls. So what's the answer?
Let me read you what the Apostle John wrote to some friends, in a letter – his first letter – around 60AD, so a good many years after he'd wandered the dusty roads of Israel with Jesus:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5–10)
So, if we think that we can walk in the darkness, live with that darkness inside us, and live in the light, live in a deep, intimate, fulfilling fellowship with Him at the same time, John's saying here – come on, you're kidding yourself. If we say that we have no sin, we're deluding ourselves.
But if we fess up, if we're honest with ourselves, if we're honest with God, if we bring our filth and darkness, our hang–ups and our inadequacies, our failures and their consequences to Him, if we take them out of the deep darkness within and bring them out into the light and give them to Him, then something amazing happens.
Deep cleansing, the sort that only, only comes from Jesus. The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. The one thing that Lady Macbeth couldn't do. The one thing that you and I cannot do. Wash away the sins. Wash away the guilt. The blood of Jesus, His sacrifice on that cross to pay for our guilt, to take our punishment on our behalf – He pays the full price, and the Spirit of God brings the peace of forgiveness and wholeness into our hearts. There's nothing on earth like that.
If we bring our sins into the light, if we confess then to God, then He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and … listen to this bit very, very carefully … and cleanse us – deep cleansing – cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.
That my friend is why Jesus came. And if you know in the depths of your heart that you need that cleansing, then it's time to pray this prayer with me.
Father God, today I have heard your Word. I realise in the depths of my heart that sin is tearing me apart. I realise that I've been hanging on to this muck inside me – as though somehow I can hide it from you. But I can't, not anymore. I confess it to you – you know what I'm talking about here. You see it all. You know it all But I just want to come to you know and fess up, and admit it to you. Openly and honestly.
And you know Lord that I am so much like Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. Doesn't matter how hard I scrub, I can't get clean. But I believe that in Jesus – in Jesus alone – I can be cleansed. So I cast myself on your grace and your mercy through Jesus – and I ask you to forgive me and to cleanse me. In His mighty name I pray. Amen.

Intimacy is a wonderful thing. Well, as it turns out God is into intimacy – both spiritual and emotional. And the intimacy on offer from God is meant to make a profound difference in our lives. So – let me ask you, is it making a difference in your life?
God's miracle makeover, sounds a little pretentious perhaps, a little grand, a little over stated. Can God possibly want to do that in my life, in your life? I know there's someone wondering that today, perhaps it's you, you look at your circumstances and you think to yourself, 'nah, that joker on the radio has to be talking about someone else, no miracles here in this place, in my life'.
But actually if that's what you're thinking then today this message is most probably for you. The reason sometimes we don't see miracles happening in our lives is that we simply don't expect them and when our faith doesn't reach out to expect them then what we're told in the Bible is that miracles are probably not going to happen.
You may remember the other week we took a look at this passage about Jesus when He travelled to His home town Nazareth, Matthew chapter 13, verses 54 to 58:
He came to his home town and began to teach the people in their Synagogue so that they were astounded and they said, 'Where does this man get this sort of wisdom and these deeds of power? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary and are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas with us and are not all his sisters with us too? Where then did this man get all of this?'
And they took offence at him but Jesus said to them, 'Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and within their own house' and he didn't do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.
People just didn't expect Jesus who they knew, who they'd seen grow up, to be the Son of God, to do these miracles that they'd heard He was doing everywhere else. And mark that final sentence, 'and He did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.' Yet this very same Jesus, this same miracle-working Jesus is prepared to be as close to us, as intimate with us as we would ever like.
If we're interested in a miracle makeover then the person we want to be close to is the miracle-working Jesus. Just have a listen to this powerful passage as God speaks to us through Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2, verses 19 and 20:
For through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but it's Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
See Paul's talking to people here who were thinking they had to work hard to get into God's favour, to be accepted by God. We're like that often, we slog away and we wonder why blessings don't just drop out of the sky sometimes. We imagine therefore we have to work harder, be better.
But Paul's saying, 'Look no, you've got it all wrong. That guy who used to think that way and slog his guts out, he's been crucified with Christ'. In other words the old me is gone and as a result it's not the old me who lives anymore but it's Christ, Jesus Himself who lives in me.
Now you know what, that may well sound like, I don't know, like theological mumbo jumbo to you and to be honest with you in the early days of my walk with Jesus it sounded precisely like that to me and in those early days I made my mind up that I'm not much into theology for theology's sake if that makes sense.
Now given what I do these days sure I call myself a theologian but still today I don't want to play theoretical games here. I want to understand what God's Word really speaks into my life in a real practical life transforming way and into your life, are you with me? I have this passion, I want to live my life for Jesus, I want it to count for something as imperfect as I am. I want my life to be changed and transformed step by step by the Holy Spirit, not by me, by Him as I walk side by side with Jesus down the road that's my life's journey.
So I come to this Scripture looking for meaning and answers in that context, with that desire in my heart. So let's read one more time and see if there are any real answers in there, for you and for me for our lives:
For through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but it's Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
When we believe in Jesus the old me, the old you is dead. We die to the idea of having to obey all these rules and laws to work our way into God's favour, man that's great news because try as I might, I think you're with me here, try as we might we can't keep all the rules all the time.
Living your life trying to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' is no way to live your life at all. The old me, the old you, those guys are crucified with Christ. We've abandoned the old person and now it's no longer the selfish me and the selfish you that's living in our bodies but Jesus. It's no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.
Now that's forensically true for anyone who believes in Jesus. Several times throughout the Bible we're told that the moment we believe we receive the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God dwelling in us. That's this intimacy thing that I was talking about at the top of the program, it's like marriage but only much, much, much more intimate because Jesus is in me and in you if you're a believer, in us 24/7 around the clock and He never leaves us or forsakes us.
The same miracle-working Jesus who performed all those miracles we talked about last week and the week before on the program, now that's a game changer, that's a total game changer. Because now all of a sudden if I spend time consciously with Jesus His power and His love do things in me and through me that I could never have done for myself.
We hunger for transformation in our lives. We want to grow and mature and be better and stronger and faster and smarter. That's what all those reality TV programs are all about, the makeover programs, the talent quests, the transform someone with raw talent into a polished performer. They all pedal transformation because we yearn for it deep in our hearts.
But the real transformation comes when the Spirit of God, Jesus Himself takes up residence in us, starts to live in us and through us and starts to woo our hearts and influence our thoughts with love and mercy and starts to strengthen our resolve to serve Him, to be honest and decent and fair.
See this transformation comes through the power of God in us and I have to tell you from where I sit that's much, much better than me on my own having to follow a bunch of rules which is what for many religion is all about. I'm not into religion, I'm not into rules and fortunately nor is Jesus. He's into relationship and love and transformation and grace and mercy and my friend I'm here to tell you, that those things have transformed my life and is still and will continue to transform my life.
And this is where the theological rubber, if you will, hits the road, the presence of Jesus in us combined with the death of the old man, the old woman who was hell-bent on destruction, quite literally, is the place of powerful transformation.
A few verses on, Galatians chapter 3, verse 27 Paul uses a slightly different metaphor. He tells us that if we put our trust in Jesus we're clothed in Him, we're wearing Jesus. So we have Him on the inside and we have Him on the outside and that right there is what I would call God's miracle makeover for you. It's for me, it's for you, it's for anyone who believes in Jesus.
I don't know what you're looking for in life but I have to say this is probably a really, really good place to start looking.

"Born again" is one of those terms that carries a lot of baggage around with it. So, if you consider yourself to be ... "born again" … can I ask you, what difference does that actually make to your life? What difference did it make yesterday? What difference is it making today?
Born again, as I said there's a term that carries quite a bit of baggage around with it and even in the Christian community. It's a term that people use without thinking through it too much. It of course comes from the discussion that Jesus had with Nicodemus one time. The old Nic was one of the good guys, he unlike most of the Jewish ruling body called the Sanhedrin, he actually believed in Jesus.
Problem was the rest of them were so anti Jesus he had to sneak over one night in the dark so no one would see him to have a chat with this Jesus fellow. Here's how that chat unfolded, John chapter 3 beginning at verse 1:
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi we know that you're a teacher who's come from God for no one can do these signs that you're doing apart from the presence of God'. And Jesus answered him, 'Very truly I tell you no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.'
Nicodemus said to him, 'How can you be born after having grown old? Can you enter your mother's womb a second time and be born?' And Jesus said, 'Very truly I tell you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh but what is born of the spirit is spirit. Don't be astonished that I say to you, you must be born again.'
What was Jesus really driving at here? His point was that just as we've been physically born into the world, as plain and as patently obvious and necessary as that physical birth was, so too if we're to enter the Kingdom of heaven there needs to be a spiritual birth. A birth that He refers to as being born again or being born from above, born of the Holy Spirit.
Now you see for the most part we kind of see that as a theological statement or maybe a statement of fact but do we really see it as a personally relevant statement? Are we impacted? Are you deeply impacted and moved by this reality? If you've accepted Jesus do you think much about the fact that you've been born again? Does it make a difference to your life?
To be honest with you as excited as I am about the life that I have in Jesus this passage hadn't really impacted on me. It hadn't impacted on how I see and feel this amazing grace that I've experienced until relatively recently. I was reading a newspaper, Spurgeon used to say that a preacher should have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, so I'm reading my newspaper and I come across an article entitled Guilt, Innocence And The American Way.
I just want to read the first part of it to you, I wonder whether it will impact your perception of being born again the way it did mine. Here's how it went:
Death row inmates who have beaten the needle are leading a campaign against capital punishment, writes Nick O'Malley. The first man to be freed from death row in the US because of DNA evidence remembers the moment his lawyer gave him the news as though it was yesterday.
'It's as clear as the vision before me now' says Kirk Bloodsworth who was exonerated in 1993 after nine years in prison. He was sitting on his bunk in a death row cell when his lawyer was ushered in and told him that he was innocent and that he would be released in a few days. He began to weep. 'Of course I cried, everyone cries at birth' he said, 'I have been born twice, once as a baby and once as a grown man and after that I saw the whole world fresh.'
There it is. Here is this man who was on death row born once, condemned to die, then born again as his guilt was removed from him. Of course it's a powerful, powerful metaphor or parable that unpacks the amazing thing that happens when our guilt is removed the moment we believe in Jesus. Every parable of course has its limitations; as does this one since of course he was unjustly condemned to death and the guilt was removed when his innocence was proven through DNA evidence.
You and I on the other hand through our rebellion against God have rightly been condemned to an eternal death separated from Him for the wages of sin is death and we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
But back to what strikes me about this man's story, it's not simply that he was elated the moment the guilt and the punishment was removed from him, that's natural, you'd expect that, hey I think I'd be doing cartwheels around the prison cell. The thing that strikes me is that it's still impacting his life today. It happened in 1993, over twenty years ago and still today he says, 'I remember it as though it was yesterday. It's as clear as the vision before me now. I've been born twice and now I see the world fresh.'
His second birth has impacted his whole life, his whole perspective. He is a changed man through that experience and I'm sure he'd tell anyone this story who was prepared to listen, I mean wouldn't you?
So why then do you and I know so many Christians who don't seem at all excited about being born again? Why does so many Christians grumble and wander through life as though nothing's changed when once they were lost and now they're found? When once they were condemned to death, they were whether they realised it back then or not they were on death row. But now the guilt and the punishment has been lifted off them and they have freedom and eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Why doesn't that change the perspective of so many Christians from that moment on for the rest of their lives? What's the matter with us people? There are so many people, people who believe in Jesus, people who call themselves Christians who are downcast, who aren't happy with their lot in life. Whose words are full of complaint, who are praying for a breakthrough when all along they've already received the biggest breakthrough they're ever going to get.
They were once on death row but now they've had a second birth and still it hasn't changed their perspective on life. Can I ask you plainly and quietly but directly, are you one of those people or has your escape from the eternal death row been a completely life transforming experience? Does it still bring you joy and a fresh perspective today?
So many people want a fresh new life and they think it comes from changing their circumstances and yet truly our externalities, our situation, our bank balance, our address, our mode of transport, our social status, none of those things are really where it's at. All of those, all the wrinkles and the bumps in them, all the things that we would rather change and have differently, they pale into significance for the man or the woman who once was on death row and was set free and born again.
What I can't understand is why we trade in our diamonds for stones, why we shift our focus from this awesome reality, the death row reality of being born again a second time to all this other stuff? Why is it that for so many Christians their second birth which in the eternal scheme of things is far more significant than Kirk Bloodsworth's escape, is less significant than his second birth is to him?
We're smack bang in the middle of a series that I've called God's Miracle Makeover For You and if you're in need of a miracle makeover I suggest this is the place to start. Open your Bible, John's Gospel, the fourth Book in the New Testament, chapter 3 and read what Jesus says about your second birth. Meditate on it, pray over it, let the Holy Spirit use it in you and through you and my friend here's what's going to happen, let me tell you.
All of a sudden a million small ailments in your life will completely lose their significance because you'll be seeing them with a fresh set of eyes, you'll be seeing them from God's perspective.

All too often, you and I are waiting for a major breakthrough, a major miracle, a major blessing, when all along, mostly, God's preferred way of helping us to grow, to change, to overcome, is quietly, gently, gradually, step by step. Why is that?
You know when things aren't going the way I want them to go what I would really, really like for God to do is to open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessing after blessing and miracle after miracle all at once, all at the same time right now to set things right. That's my way, hey how simple is that?
So why doesn't God get it? What's the matter with Him? You know when you put it that way we in a sense see how ridiculous that is and yet when we're between that rock and that hard place isn't that exactly what we want Him to do? Isn't our first thought, our first desire for an instant miracle, an instant fix?
Somebody is giving you a hard time so you imagine a lightning bolt striking them down. Your finances are in a hole, debts mounting so you think about winning Lotto, that twenty million would go down just so well at the moment. I wonder whether God wants me to buy a lottery ticket. All those things point to our desire for an instant miracle and every now and then God does just that, He does it for His own reasons in His own time at His own pleasure and for His own glory, I mean hallelujah.
But those instant miracles tend to be an exception. Yes there are times and places where God acts miraculously. Often they're places of great need and there's great faith involved. Often they're circumstances where God wants people to see His glory and His power so they'll believe in Him, that happens.
But empirically from experience we realise that God's most common way of working in our lives is through a series of small steps that transforms us over a lifetime rather than say five humongous miracles each seven or eight years apart right? There's a reason for that, it's because He's much, much more interested in developing our character and the depth of our relationship with Him than He is in providing us with quick fixes when we think we need them.
Don't believe me, have a listen to this through the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 to 5 he says this:
And not only that but we also boast in our suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope doesn't disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.
Now that's what I call a chain reaction, suffering produces endurance and that forges a character of substance and as that character grows in-depth and breadth it focuses more on Jesus than the suffering. That produces real certain hope and that hope is the chamber into which God pours His Holy Spirit and His love and man there's a whole week or two of messages just in those two verses in Romans.
But you see where God's going with this right? He wants to transform us in a way that sets us free from all this rubbish, the sin, the stuff we've been carrying around and in a way that matures us so that we can really enjoy life. The life that He's given us even when circumstances are against us.
The contrast in this passage is so stark between suffering on the one hand and God pouring His love and His Spirit into our hearts in the midst of as a direct consequence of the work that He does in us through that suffering.
The reason a blacksmith will put metal into a fire before shaping it is because the fire makes the metal malleable in his hands. It's exactly the same with you and me. In our natural state we're often stiff and strong and unyielding but put us in the furnace of suffering and we become malleable, something God can work with for our own good and for His glory.
See that's how maturity happens. Let me ask you, is there any such thing as instant maturity? Probably not. Sometimes something really significant happens and we do a lot of growing up in a very short period of time but to mature a good wine you put it down in the cellar, not for hours, not for days, not for even months but for years.
In this world of reality television we're being conditioned to think about having instant makeovers. That's what cosmetic surgery is all about, that's what going to a beautician is about, that's why people have home renovations and garden makeovers and style makeovers, instant makeovers. NOW, I want it now.
We're all looking for transformation, for something that will make a difference but the deepest, most powerful change is the really profound long-lasting changes in who we are happen little by little when we yield ourselves to the work of the masters hand. When we become malleable and pliable so that He can shape us and mould us into the most remarkable person He always knew that we could be.
Have a listen to this, again God speaking through the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 12 to 18:
Since then we have such hope, we act with great boldness. Not like Moses who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside but their minds were hardened, indeed to this very day when they hear the reading of the old Covenant that same veil is still there since only in Christ is it set aside.
Indeed to this very day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds but when we turn to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and all of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to the next, from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
See again here Paul picked up this terminology of people's minds being hardened. How often when things are going just fine and dandy are our minds closed to the amazing transformation that God wants to bring to our lives? We all want transformation, our fixation on reality television tells us that that's true but we reject it when things are going well.
A real paradox, it's like there's a veil over our minds but when we turn to Jesus that veil is removed and we see things all of a sudden for what they really are and we discover that God's perspective on things is so totally different to the way we've always thought.
We truly are transformed by the renewing of our minds, changing the way we see things and thinking about things in Christ. That's where the real transformation comes from, that's where this newness of life that Jesus promises us lies. All of a sudden we discover the freedom we were always looking for right there under our noses in Christ.
Now here's the crunch, the really important bit, as we open our hearts and minds to Christ and travel through the furnace of trials and tribulations along the journey we experience transformation. From what? From glory to glory.
All of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
Do you see, from one degree of glory to the next, step by step we're transformed by the Holy Spirit as we journey through the trials of life and this is deep lasting transformation. Our tendency is to fight it, we've been conditioned to expect instant easy makeovers but most times the miracle makeover that God has planned for you happens step by step from glory to glory as you're transformed back into His image so that more and more when people look at you what they see is Jesus. What a stunning picture.
So here's what I'd like to leave with you today. The next time you're thinking to yourself, 'why is this taking so long? How come I keep making so many mistakes? Why doesn't God just do something now?' Remember He is doing something, step by step from glory to glory.
It's time for you to enjoy that journey, to yield to His Spirit and to let His miracle makeover to happen along the way and as you look back over the changes in the months and the years to come you'll be astounded at how much you've changed, grown, matured, from glory to glory.