Quotes about Transformation

In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence.

An image needs a living object, and a copy can only be formed from a model. Either man models himself on the god of his own invention, or the true and living God moulds the human form in his image. There must be a complete transformation, a 'metamorphosis' (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18), if man is to be restored to the image of God.

Easter is not about immortality but about resurrection from a death that is a real death with all its frightfulness and horrors, resurrection from a death of the body and the soul, of the whole person, resurrection by the power of God's mighty act. This is the Easter message.

Is it not a miracle that where Jesus has really become Lord over people, peace reigns?

To be conformed to the one who has become human—that is what being really human means.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Isaiah 1:18

Jesus Christ in his word must be our death and our life.

To be conformed to the image of Christ is not an ideal to be striven after. It is not as though we had to imitate him as well as we could. We cannot transform ourselves into his image; it is rather the form of Christ which seeks to be formed in us (Gal. 4.19), and to be manifested in us. Christ's work in us is not finished until he has perfected his own form in us. We must be assimilated to the form of Christ in its entirety, the form of Christ incarnate, crucified and glorified.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps. The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. The call to follow at once produces a new situation. To stay in the old situation makes discipleship impossible.

It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.

couldn't say it, but I believed then-and still do-that I survived only because a number of people wanted me to. They were relentless, passionate, and desperate, and they believed God would hear them. People prayed for me who had never seriously prayed before; some who hadn't uttered a word of petition in years cried out to God to spare me. My experience brought people to their knees, and many of them had changed in the process of praying for me to live.

I was twenty years old at the time. Three years earlier I had experienced for the first time the new life, the love, the joy of knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way. A crisis came, I called upon Him, and suddenly He was there, alive! In fact, two thousand years had not aged Him a bit! I found He still had the same power to transform men's lives and hold their loyalty that He had manifested in the Gospels two millenniums before.