I Know I’ve Been Changed

LaShun Pace Rhodes sings “I Know I’ve Been Changed.”  It’s a down home, foot stomping gospel song.  You can find it on YouTube if you’ve never heard it.  Back in the days of cassette tapes, LaShun was on heavy rotation in my mother’s car.  At Bible study on Wednesday night, pastor taught about spiritual transformation.  As soon as I got home and thought about the lesson, the song sprang to mind.

At one point in the song, she says, “God’s chemical laboratory of redemption took my black soul and dipped it in red blood, and I came out white as snow.”  It’s an awesome visual description of just how changed Christians should be.  The change is dramatic and doesn’t make sense.  People can’t explain it, but they’ve seen it happen before their own eyes.

Pastor pushed the point that many Christians are living life below their means.  When we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, heaven is opened to us.  We have access to peace, abundant life, love, joy, and wholeness.  So why do we settle for less?  And when I say we, once again, I’m talking about myself.

I’ve shared that I’ve opened myself up to letting God really work in me, but tonight’s Bible study made me wonder if the work that’s going on inside of me is evident to those around me.  Has there been a dramatic change that’s visible and almost tangible?  When I walk in the room, do others see the light shining from within me?

The reality is that God doesn’t transform us just to transform us.  He’s not doing it so that we can feel victorious and free while others suffer.  The work that God does in us should draw others to Him.  When they see someone that was sad and downtrodden become full of joy, they should marvel at the change that occurred in them.

Unfortunately, many Christians limit what God can actually do.  If we see dramatic change, we instantly think that that can’t be God.  We take our limited understanding of who He is and stuff Him in a box.  I wonder how we became so jaded.  Can God really transform people???  Yes.  We just have to be willing to be molded and changed by Him.

I’m going to be really honest here.  I don’t agree with many of the things that my biological father says to me.  I wasted a lot of breath countering his feelings about what a Christian should look like, or sound like, or just be like.  One of his favorite lines to me is “You should just stop wasting your time and putting on clothes to go to church if you’re going to act like that.”  Although his logic is flawed, his words came to me tonight.  I’m not going to stop going to church, but I am going to be more purposeful about letting the Christ in me show to others.

Will I be perfect?  Absolutely not!  Catch me on day six of a serious seven day fast, and I might be grumpy.  Catch me after nine hours of therapy with children, and my hello may be a little dry.  But I AM determined to walk in my spiritual transformation daily.  I want the same for all believers everywhere.  #wepreach