Many Want To Be Transformed, Few Want To Change!
How many people imagine themselves as a slim ballet dancer standing delicately on tiptoe, while in reality they are just piles of gluttonous protoplasm? The latest craze is "I identify as..." - people thinking that whatever sexual fantasy pops into their mind, that is what they really are, and you should be socially blackballed or even legally prosecuted if you don't play along with this charade.
Positive thinking won't help you leap over tall buildings in a single bound or magically change your age or sex or ethnicity. If I proclaim: "I identify as six-year-old, three-foot-tall Natasha in Russia, so you must kneel down to my level and speak to me in Russian!" - that doesn't change me from a 74-year-old, 6'2"-tall American man to anything other than a little crazy. But there is a sliver of truth in thinking positive thoughts rather than living under a black cloud of pessimism. Henry Ford once said - "There are two kinds of people: those who think they can't, and those who think they can. Both are right."
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romas 12:1-2 - "Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God." St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote - "How can the person who is conformed to this age, who is not transformed in the newness of his mind and who does not walk in the newness of this life but instead follows the life of the old man, obey Paul, who commanded you to present your body as a sacrifice living, holy and pleasing to God?"
St. Paul also wrote - "Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain, for he says, 'At an acceptable time I listened to you, in a day of salvation I helped you.' Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). In my last essay, I mentioned that God's grace is not merely a free gift. Much more, it is God's transforming energies that we must receive into our lives in order to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.
St. John Chrysostom wrote - "Paul is telling his hearers that they must not relax just because God has sought them out and sent them as ambassadors. On the contrary, for that very reason we should hasten to please him and reap our spiritual blessings."
The phrase "in vain" is sometimes translated in Russian and Ukrainian as "darom" meaning "as a gift." In other words, "not in vain" is "not merely as a gift." Christian transformation isn't something that drops on you from heaven as you just sit back imagining it while doing nothing: transformation requires our active cooperation with God. These verses begin with "Working together" - but with whom? With God! It's "Synergism," best expressed in the words of St. Paul: "So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God Who works in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13).
James, the step-brother of our Lord, wrote - "But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does" (James 1:22-25). Those who just sit back and listen to sermons, then go home and within 30 minutes forget the Word preached to them are deluding themselves by imagining they have become better just by sitting in a pew listening to nice, warm-fuzzy words.
Even in Old Testament times this tendency existed: "As for you, son of man, the children of your people talk about you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak to one another, everyone to his brother, saying, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes out from the Lord.' They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain. Behold, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don't do them" (Ezekiel 33:30-32).
The point I'm driving at is that God's grace that in Christ is the light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world (John 1:9) has appeared, bringing salvation to all people (Titus 2:11), not just to a certain, special "elect" who do nothing, this grace must be received and acted upon. It doesn't just fall down on us from heaven and magically transform us while we sit back passively. It requires our co-working together with God, our "synergism."
We are not automatically damned because of Adam's sin, nor are we automatically "chosen" and "elected" because we were lucky enough to hold the winning number in a cosmic lottery. Each one of us is responsible for our own actions or inaction:
"When I tell the righteous that he will surely live; if he trusts in his righteousness, and commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but he will die in his iniquity that he has committed. Again, when I say to the wicked, “You will surely die;” if he turns from his sin, and does that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he will surely live. He will not die. None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done that which is lawful and right. He will surely live. Yet the children of your people say, 'The way of the Lord is not fair;' but as for them, their way is not fair" (Ezekiel 33: 13-17).
Imagine someone saying - "God, You're not fair!" Why? "Because I didn't get my freebie!" The idea of personal responsibility and the need to change one's behavior in order to receive something good has been driven out of our society's public consciousness. We expect things to be provided for us free by the state, which derives from the notion that we are a special, chosen people. I've seen poor people demand that they be given a free turkey for Thanksgiving Day. No, it's not the Lord Who is unfair, it's we, the supposedly "elect" who are unfair and irresponsible. We can't count on living forever in a land of abundance once the majority of people expect to be given a free ride. Then the printing presses won't be able to keep on printing "fake money" because it won't be backed by a GDP that's producing much at all.
Recall that in Romans 12:1-2 I quoted - "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God"? "Holy" means sanctified, consecrated or committed totally to God. The context for transformation is holiness! In the same context of holiness, St. Paul wrote - "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you; that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing" (1 Thes. 4:11-12). "The Christian life is by its very nature a growth process analogous to the growth of the body; perfection in good habits ought to grow as faith grows" - so wrote St. Clement of Alexandria. Good habits take effort and practice, they don't come automatically.
In his second letter to the church in Thessalonica, St. Paul wrote - "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: 'If anyone will not work, don’t let him eat.' For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don't work at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread" (2 Thes. 3:10-12). It is contrary to God's Word that we give food to people who refuse to work, or even look for a job. Many want to be transformed, but few want to change!
What will it look like when we finally decide to stop blaming God - "That's just the way God made me!" - stop trying to work the system for all the freebies we can get, and decide to really change? Here's what it will look like: "But to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:15-18).
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Before and just after a baby is born, he or she is completely dependent on the mother and father. Thus begins the cycle of synergism: first, the parents are responsible and the baby has little or no responsibility - only to breathe, eat and grow, which come with the package, naturally. With the passage of time, however, the child gains more independence and is given more and more responsibility. Finally, we reach the stage where roles are reversed: the adult child may become responsible for the elderly parents who are losing their independence. This illustrates the cycle of interdependence, or synergism.