Carl is hungry all the time. He is obsessed with eating. He thinks of nothing except keeping his stomach full. You see, Carl is a caterpillar, and as a caterpillar he will shed his skin four or five times in order to make room for the steady supply of leaves his insatiable appetite demands. In fact, he will increase his weight ten-thousand-fold in less than 20 days. His gluttonous appetite will cause tremendous damage to crops and the economy of humans. There is nothing of lasting value or worth to say about Carl the caterpillar.
But something marvelous is about to happen to Carl. Deep inside something calls him to stop eating and yield to a process of being fully encapsulated by a mysterious substance that hardens around him.
Many days pass, and then it happens. Carl bursts out of his cocoon. He has undergone a radical change called metamorphosis. He is now a new creature with new habits and a whole new look…because Carl the caterpillar, obsessed only with fulfilling his gluttonous appetite, has been transformed into a beautiful butterfly. He no longer crawls about with a ravenous appetite that destroys crops. He now soars through the air, flying from plant to plant, pollinating flowers to enhance the beauty of his world.1
Our transformation changes us from self-seeking creatures to godlike beings.
“Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful desires,” Paul the apostle says, “will harvest the consequences of decay and death” (Galatians 6:8). Like Carl the caterpillar, “their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth” (Philippians 3:19).
But deep within our souls a voice is heard. It is the voice of God that calls us out of sin and death so a miraculous metamorphosis can take place. For “those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).
Our transformation changes us from self-seeking creatures to godlike beings. “God knew his people in advance,” Paul declared, “and he chose them to become like his Son” (Romans 8:29). Even though sin broke our relationship with God and we crawled about fulfilling our own sinful appetites, because of Christ our Godlikeness is restored, as “we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV).
“You must display a new nature,” Scripture says, “because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness—righteous, holy, and true” (Ephesians 4:23). As redeemed, justified, sanctified, and adopted children of God, “his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life…And by that same mighty power…he has promised…that you will share in his divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4). When God raises us to new life he imparts his DNA to us so we can be a living replica of Christ. That is the root meaning of Christian—“Little Christ.”
“God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4-5). Just as we humans take pleasure in our children looking and acting like us, so our heavenly Father exults to see each of us transformed into a new person who is becoming more and more like his Son.
I (Sean) will never forget the birth of our first child. It had been a long day, and when Stephanie told me it was time to take her to the hospital I was both excited and a little scared. I would be a father. That was going to be a new and frightening experience all rolled into one.
Then little Scottie was delivered. And I was a proud father. I have to admit that as I looked at him I searched for any resemblance he might have to Stephanie or me. Did he have my nose or Stephanie’s eyes? Did he have my color hair, or was the shape of his face like Stephanie’s? For some reason I wanted my offspring to have a resemblance to me and his mother.
By the time Scottie was one year old, it was clear. He was the physical image of what his father had been at that age. In fact, when I pulled out both my baby pictures and those of Josh, my dad, we found that little Scottie resembled two generations of McDowells. In the future when our ancestors look at these photos of the three of us at that age, it will be difficult to distinguish who was who because we three looked so alike. There was something about having a child that looked like me that felt honoring. And it filled me with joy.
So it is with God. He is honored when we live in relationship with him and begin to look like him and act like him. That is our purpose, to live in relationship with him and reflect his likeness. When God said, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves” (Genesis 1:26), he was designing each of us to live and enjoy life as he did. God in effect was saying, “become intimate with me and through our close relationship you will experience the true joy of living, for you will bear the fruit of my nature—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and that will make me proud and give me honor” (see Galatians 5:22-23). It pleases God to see us resemble him. In fact, that defines our purpose in life.
Our purpose in life is to honor our Creator God by living in relationship with him and out of that relationship becoming more and more like him. God created us to bring glory to himself. And we glorify God—reflect honorably upon him—as we live in devoted love of him, desiring to please him. “Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do,” Paul said, “you must do all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
You and I begin to fulfill our purpose when we begin to live out the Godlike life he designed for us. He created us to relate to him and enjoy all the blessings that come from being godly. As we said before, acting according to God’s ways brings blessing because all that is defined as perfectly right and good is derived from his nature (see James 1:17).
Therefore:
We believe the truth that followers of Christ are meant to live in relationship with God and be transformed into the likeness of Christ, which defines our very purpose for living—to honor and glorify God.
We were created to live contented lives of joy. We were made to know the gratifying joy of being accepted, approved of, and appreciated, with the ability to freely love and be loved. We were designed to experience fulfillment and satisfaction beyond measure, contentment and peace beyond understanding, and complete joy. And that kind of meaningful life comes only from living in fellowship with God and being conformed to his image. When we come into relationship with God, it begins a process of change that allows his divine nature to permeate our lives. And as we live out that Godlike nature we fulfill the very reason we are here.