There is a pithy little quip that sums up the Gospel: “God formed us. Sin deformed us. Jesus transforms us.” I love that! In my BC days (Before Christ), I thought Christians were deformed humans, basically robots. They had no freedom, but had to follow long lists of rules. They were arrogant towards anyone who wasn’t a rule follower like them and would laugh at those who didn’t know the Bible as well as they did. I wanted no part of them.
But as I heard the Gospel message, amazingly enough through a pastor teaching the book of Revelation, I was attracted to Jesus. I was uncomfortably aware of my sin. For a while I struggled with turning my life over to Jesus Christ and becoming a Christian because I was afraid. I was afraid that I would become less of a woman. I am so thankful that the good news was too overwhelming for me to resist, because I did not have it right. Before trusting in Jesus, I was less than God had made me to be. I was a soul. I had a body, but my spirit was dead. That part of me had to be “born again.” I had no idea that part of me was deformed until I actually gave my life to Jesus Christ.
That was over thirty years ago. God has taken me through some very difficult trials. He used those situations to transform me. He’s still transforming me, making me more and more like His Son. I am not fully transformed yet, but I have His promise that one day I will be!
“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6