The Good God - Transformation
Readings for this week August 26 - 30
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Day 1 – The Spirit of Transformation
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Colossians 1:3-8
We have seen that there is so much that we cannot do by ourselves for ourselves. Our own salvation is beyond us. So we cannot save ourselves; neither can we transform ourselves. Life was given to us as a gift, from God, beyond us; and new life is also a gift that comes from outside, such renewing and transforming is a gift given by the Spirit of God, bestowed by Jesus and now dwelling inside us. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of transformation, guiding us and accompanying us, yes, but also changing and moulding us. The Spirit is never static, never docile, never just ‘along for the ride.’ And if we are truly submissive and truly offering all of who we are to God in the service of his Son and his kingdom, then we cannot expect to be static either. We will be changed. Discipleship demands it.
The Spirit of the one who came to save us and make us his own is the means by which we become his own and become more and more like him. The King’s desires become ours; the King’s heart steadily and surely grows in us, breaking for the things that break his; we learn to see the world and the people in it through the eyes of the one who made them and loves them perfectly as no one else can. We change because we offer ourselves up to be changed, recognising that such deep, fundamental, foundational transformation can only come from the one who made us and knows us best – both as we are and as we will become.
Questions to Consider
“We change because we offer ourselves up to be changed.” How do you understand this? How do we do this?
Prayer
Lord God, I need to offer myself to you – daily, again and again. I need to offer all that I am – in thought and deed; in past, present and future – into your hands, so that I can be remade in the image of Jesus. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – When Copycat is not an Insult
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Colossians 1:9-14
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” said Jesus in his proclamation in the synagogue at Nazareth. This is the same Spirit he then breathed on his disciples and that has also made his home in us. The same Spirit that descended upon Jesus, that guided him in what to do and say and pray, that empowered him to magnificent displays of the power of God to heal and feed and sustain people, that broke the barrier of death and raised Jesus back to life, is the same Spirit that is now pleased to make his home in us – and that does so for the same reason: so that we can continue the work that Jesus was doing, the work he taught his disciples to do, the work that he wants us to continue to do work.
If Jesus was proclaiming good news to the poor and freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; if he was speaking and acting against the powers and principalities – both spiritual and human – that were oppressing people; if he was standing in solidarity with the poor and marginalised; then that is what are to do to. And through the Holy Spirit we can do these things, and more. The Spirit makes us into Jesus’ likeness, grows his heart and mind in us – and empowers us to continue his kingdom work too. Nothing is impossible for God; none of the work of the kingdom need be impossible for us either, if we are moving and working and loving in the power of the Spirit who is transforming both us and the world.
Questions to Consider
Where would others see the likeness of Jesus in you? How have you noticed yourself developing the heart of Jesus lately?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, take me to the places where you are. Show me the people you are with so that I may be with them to, loving them just the way you do. Expand the bounds of my love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – Transformed for a Purpose
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Colossians 1:15-23
The good thing is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We do not need to start from scratch. God is already at work in the world. Since the moment of creation God has been attentive to the world, loving it, tending to it, working on it and with it, all for his glory. God has been active in the world ever since “the Spirit hovered over the waters.” Just as he knows us better than we know ourselves, so also does he know the world in its entirety. He knows what is happening and he knows what is needed to bring his creation fully back to him in all its fullness and glory. We don’t have to tell him what to do (although he does faithfully listen to our prayers!); we don’t have to carry the burden ourselves. We just need to be prayerfully vigilant and active in looking for where God is at work.
This is why we need to be actively seeking God in the world, finding the places where he is already at work, where his Spirit is already moving, and joining in the work of the kingdom. And we know where he will be because he has already told us. He said he would be with the poor and broken and abandoned. That is where we will find him. That is where we must be too. To be with Jesus will always mean being with others too, especially those he said he would be with. The Spirit moves and the Spirit leads. The one who gave us his Spirit has shown us what to do, where to go, who to be with and how to be with them.
Questions to Consider
Where do you see God in the world around you? How are you positioning yourself to join him in his work and join those he is with? How might you need to move in order to do this?
Prayer
Loving Father, you call me to solidarity with the poor and oppressed, with the victims of injustice. Open my eyes and my heart to the ways I fail to do this. Call me out into greater giving and love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – Complete and Utter Transformation
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Colossians 1:24-27
All our relationships are transformed by the saving work of Jesus and the subsequent gift of his Spirit to us. Nothing is left untouched. Too often people fall into the mindset of salvation being only about the restoration of our relationship with the good God, rescue from sin, and nothing else, as if it is now just “me and God against the world.” But as an image of a fellowship, of a communal God in three persons whose love flows outwards in a movement of creation that seeks to include others in their shared love, each of us is created to be a similarly outward facing lover of others, of creation, of the good earth that God has made. So all of our relationships undergo transformation, not just our foundational relationship with God.
Our Spirit-empowered transformation is not just personal and individual (although it is that too), it is also corporate and global in its reach. What the Spirit grows in us, that we cannot grow by ourselves, is the ability to turn outwards, to orient ourselves towards others, and to love them, to allow the flow of God’s love to us to continue its flow through us to others – and also from others to us. God loves all and our transformation into his likeness means we are to love all too, near and far, similar and different, friend and enemy. God’s love reaches where we can’t, stretches us, and takes us to people and places we would not otherwise go, transforming us as we go. God’s love moves and we must move with it.
Questions to Consider
What fruit has been growing in your life recently? How have you noticed this? How have your four key relationships (with God, self, each other and the world) changed lately?
Prayer
Lord God, thank you again for the gift of your Spirit and the transformation of all my relationships. Continue to deepen and grow me and the relationships I have – and show me new ones to cultivate. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – Choosing the Good God
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Colossians 1:28-29
“What is your Christian life like? What is the shape of your gospel, your faith? In the end, it will all depend on what you think God is like. Who God is drives everything. So what is the human problem? Is it merely that we have strayed from a moral code? Or is it something worse: that we have strayed from him? What is salvation? Is it merely that we are brought back as law-abiding citizens? Or is it something better: that we are brought back as beloved children? What is the Christian life about? Mere behaviour? Or something deeper: enjoying God? And then there's what our churches are like, our marriages, our relationships, our mission: all are moulded in the deepest way by what we think of God.[…]
“The choice remains: which God will we have? Which God will we proclaim? Without Jesus the Son, we cannot know that God is truly a loving Father. Without Jesus the Son, we cannot know him as our loving Father. But as Luther discovered, through Jesus we may know that God is a Father, and ‘we might look into His fatherly heart and sense how boundlessly He loves us. That would warm our hearts, setting them aglow.’ Yes it would, and more: it would bring about reformation.”
Michael Reeves, The Good God: Enjoying Father, Son and Spirit, p.97 (digital reference)
Questions to Consider
What has this ‘Good God’ series revealed to you about the nature of God? How have you experienced a deepening of your love for God? What will you do differently in the light of this series? What is your next step?
Prayer
Gracious God, you are a good God. You love us, you want us, and you make all things possible through the active power of your love. Make us better people, show us how to love the way you do so that the world may know you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)