Quotes About Transformation

Stand up. Pick up your mat and walk.' And immediately the man was well; he picked up his mat and began to walk" (vv. 8–9 NCV). I wish we would do that. I wish we would learn that when Jesus says something, it happens. When Jesus tells us to stand, let's stand.

Ask God to show you specific areas in your life that require his special "renewing" attention.

Pablo tenía sangre en sus manos y diplomas religiosos en su pared. Pero entonces llegó el momento en el camino a Damasco. Jesús apareció. Y una vez Pablo vio a Jesús, ya no pudo ver más.

Can you imagine the restaurant host removing his tuxedo coat and offering it to me? Jesus does. We're not talking about an ill-fitting, leftover jacket. He offers a robe of seamless purity and dons my patchwork coat of pride, greed, and selfishness. "He changed places with us" (Gal. 3:13). He wore our sin so we could wear his righteousness.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23–24).

It's time to let God's love cover all things in your life. All secrets. All hurts. All hours of evil, minutes of worry. The mornings you awoke in the bed of a stranger? His love will cover that. The years you peddled prejudice and pride? His love will cover that. Every promise broken, drug taken, penny stolen. Every cross word, cuss word, and harsh word. His love covers all things.

Some accept the blood but forget the water. They want to be saved but don't want to be changed. Others accept the water but forget the blood. They are busy for Christ but never at peace in Christ.

God can turn any tragedy into a triumph, if only you will wait and watch.

Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart—poisoned as it is with pride and pain—and replacing it with his own. Rather than tell you to change, he creates the change. Do you clean up so he can accept you? No, he accepts you and begins cleaning you up.

God took the crucifixion of Friday and turned it into the celebration of Sunday.

Let grace microwave your cold heart. "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). When you do, you'll find yourself joining the ranks of the truly wealthy. You'll be rich with grace.

No more Bethesda for you. No more waking up and going to sleep in the same mess. God dismantled the neutral gear from your transmission. He is the God of forward motion, the God of tomorrow. He is ready to write a new chapter in your biography.

Allow the spit of the soldiers to symbolize the filth in our hearts. And then observe what Jesus does with our filth. He carries it to the cross.

Everything changes when we see the face of God.

Can you be more saved than you were the first day of your salvation? No. But can a person grow in salvation? Absolutely. It, like marriage, is a done deal and a daily development.

The path to the palace wasn't quick; it wasn't painless, but wouldn't you say that God took this mess and made it into something good? And wouldn't you think he can do the same with yours? Tally up the pain of your past. Betrayals plus anger plus tragedies. Poorly parented? Wrongly accused? Inappropriately touched? Oh, how onerous life can be.

Words are powerful. If you've been on the other end of stinging criticism, you know what I mean. Will one positive remark transform your family? Probably not. But keep it up. No one can resist the power of encouragement.

God's grace has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide, turn-you-upside-downness about it. Grace comes after you. It rewires you. From insecure to God secure. From regret-riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid-to-die to ready-to-fly. Grace is the voice that calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off.1

On the Anvil

We would be wrong to think this change happens overnight. But we would be equally wrong to assume change never happens at all.

3This is what the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right!

We look at the Nike star player with the million-dollar smile and say, "I want to be like him." God points to His Son—who suffered the cross to save you—and says, "I want you to be like Him.

GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, BUT HE REFUSES TO LEAVE YOU THAT WAY.

Our lives are a little like a milkshake. Ingredients get mixed together. Some of the ingredients are unimpressive by themselves. Some—rejections, disappointments, failures—are awful at the time. Yet God shakes them up and pours them out into a concoction that is delicious and good.