Everyone craves change. As ubiquitous as a campaign stump speech, a business article or a pitch for a weight-loss program, everyone chases change.
What we find out during the chase is that change is hard when we do it. To make things worse, we may not fully experience the change or the changes don’t last.
It’s an essential to remember that as churches around Dallas prepare for Transform Dallas 2016. While God uses men and women, He is the One Who drives change. He initiates it from what appears to be the cocoon of impossibility, empowers it, and sustains its beauty and effectiveness. As the ministry lead for Transform Dallas 2016, those of us at Dallas Leadership Foundation don’t want to forget that.
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| Domink QN, unsplash.com |
In God alone is the power to both unite believers and hover over our communities and ignite transformation. Think about Genesis 1:2. God viewed the world before Him that was formless and void -- tohu vavho -- and initiated sacred change. Only He had the ability to do so.
After the fall of Adam and Eve, and through the ages since then, God’s focus has been constant, forward-leading change. The patriarchs and their descendants looked to God for change. They submitted to what He identified as authentic change. They called on the attributes He revealed to them and experienced deliverance. For example, Abraham saw Him as El Shaddai, the All Sufficient God, and when God answered Hagar during her distress, she called Him El-Roi, the God Who Sees Me.
For those of us who look back to the cross and the freedom from sin Jesus secured for all those who believe in Him, we’re led to do the same as believers during the ages before the cross. We may shudder at the chaos in our world, but we must seek Him to right it as He pleases, through whom He pleases, and in the manner He pleases. We must elevate God as the Transcendent One Who overcomes the rebellious flesh within us and the rioting world around us. As Paul wrote:
I exhort you, therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer yourselves as a sacrifice, living and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical "Temple worship" for you.
In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of the 'olam hazeh [world]. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed. (Romans 12:1, 2, Complete Jewish Bible)
God renews His sons and daughters from within. He peels off self-reliance and self-absorption. He teaches us to discern the real battles and experience the victories heaven seeks. It’s interesting that the Greek word Paul uses for transform in Romans 12:2 is the same word he uses for believers being changed into His glory in 2 Cor. 3:18:
So all of us, with faces unveiled, see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by ADONAI the Spirit. (Complete Jewish Bible)
Change in us should be obvious. Lasting. Glorious, even. When it is, the transformation in our communities will rock the world.
This is the first in a series of articles Dallas Leadership Foundation will post as we prepare for Transform Dallas 2016. To participate or donate to Transform Dallas, please visit http://www.dlftx.org/transform-dallas.
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