POPCORN pops due to an explosion of moisture. Every kernel of popcorn has moisture in it. When you put popcorn in the microwave, the microwave heats up the moisture, creating steam. When steam rises inside the shell of the popcorn, it presses against the shell until the shell can’t withstand the pressure anymore and it pops open, splitting open the shell.
What once was a small, hard little object has now increased in size and become soft and fluffy. In fact, when the popcorn pops, it’s hard to even find the shell. The old outward appearance is now dominated by the inside characteristics.
God has seated deep down in your soul something that is ready to respond to the right environment. When the Holy Spirit begins to “cook” your divine nature so that the steam of your new life begins to rise and press through this outer shell called the body, you begin to “pop.” You will begin to look, act, talk, and walk differently because the change occurring on the inside will show up on the outside.917
[Christian Living, New Life; New Life in Christ]
2 Cor. 5:17
WHEN the cordless phone has been off the hook for too long, it no longer works. The signal has lost its power and its influence. That phone must be rested back onto the base in order for it to become rejuvenated.
One of the reasons Christians are not transformed the way God wants us to be is that we’ve been away too long. We’ve been disconnected too long. Like a cell phone that cuts off because there is a bad spot on the freeway, Christians lose contact with God.918
[Jesus, Relationship with; Self-Sufficiency, Danger of; Sin, Consequences of]
Ps. 66:18; Isa. 59:2
THE STORY is told of a native in a foreign country who had never seen a mirror before. The missionaries brought one over. This native girl had never seen what she looked like. She walked up and for the first time in her life looked at a mirror and saw herself. The mirror had been nailed to a tree. Not liking the image before her, she took the mirror off the tree and slammed it to the ground. She did not like what the mirror had to say so she got rid of the mirror.
When we come before the mirror of God’s Word, the first thing we will see is ourselves. Many of us don’t want the mirror to tell us the truth because we won’t like what it tells us.919
[Bible; Truth]
James 1:23–25
JAMES 1 says men go to the mirror, they look, and they quickly turn away “forgetting what they saw.” That’s not how women use mirrors. A woman will get up and go to mirror number one to check and make sure she is starting out right. Next, there is a long, full body mirror—mirror number two. Then, this woman will get in her car, pull down the visor, and check in mirror number three. Once at her place of employment, she will go to the ladies room and look at mirror number four. Now, mirror number five is in her purse. This mirror gives this lady a way to check and recheck her look in an instant.
Why do women have mirror after mirror? They never want to lose sight of what they look like.920
James 1:23–25
WHENEVER you see a pregnant woman, you can know for certain that she didn’t get that way by reading a book about sex. Information didn’t get her pregnant, intimacy did.
Transformation doesn’t occur in Christians because we read about it. We are transformed because we get close.921
[Intimacy, Importance of; Intimacy, Power of]
James 4:8; Heb. 10:22
MANY people have experienced the frustration of putting food in the microwave to heat it up, only to find that when the timer goes off, the food is hot outside and still cold inside. There is a relatively new microwave on the market called the Inverter. It’s different from every other microwave. It heats from the inside out. In this microwave, the visible effects on the outside are determined by the changes brought about internally first.
See, some Christian folks look hot on the surface. Externally, everything looks spiritual, but if we could peer into the soul, we might see that things are still cold. God is not against a hot outside. He’s not against you looking blessed, or you looking on fire for Him. He’s not against that. It’s a good thing to be blessed externally, but just not at the expense of the soul. God wants a smoking inside that makes its way out.922
[Christian Living, Authenticity; Legalism, Danger of]
Isa. 29:3; Matt. 23:27
ONE of the greatest inventions of all time is soft-serve ice cream. Where ice cream could be hard and scooped out using a lot of effort with an ice cream scooper, somebody figured out a way to make soft-serve ice cream immediately available with minimal effort.
There is a homemade way to get soft-serve ice cream too. Take the carton out of the freezer, put it on the kitchen counter, and let it set out for a while. Simply transfer the atmosphere of the ice cream and after a bit of time you will see change. Situating it in the right location, the new location will produce the transformation desired.
The reason why some Christians are so cold, callous, stingy, unloving, and evil is because they are not hanging out in the right atmosphere. God will do the work of transformation if we are in an atmosphere where He is. He is willing to do the work of change in our hearts and minds if we will allow Him.923
[Love, Lack of; Transformation]
Ezek. 11:19; 2 Cor. 3:18
A BUTTERFLY prances from flower to flower, pausing and moving like believers who go from service to service. They don’t really DO anything. They just flitter. They are really good at looking pretty, dressed, and colorful on any given Sunday. These people go from church to church and conference to conference—fluttering.
Some Christians are like the botanist who intently studies the flower, taking copious notes, writing everything down, and observing all of the idiosyncratic details of every kind of flower there is. Although this botanist may be an academic genius, he is totally unaffected by his notes.
This person is like the Bible college student or the seminarian who can quote Greek, Hebrew, and Edgar. He can break down the syntax of a sentence and go into the grammatical construct of a verse, diagramming ALL the elements of the passage, but who walks away untransformed with all of his knowledge.
But then there’s the bee. The bee is a little different; it goes into the flower and takes out the nectar; the bee does more than the butterfly, which just wants to flutter from place to place. It does more than the botanist who just wants a good grade. The bee wants to partake of the nectar of the flower. It comes in empty but leaves full. And on its way out, it deposits something somewhere so that pollination occurs and life keeps on going.
Are you a butterfly Christian? Are you a botanist Christian? or are you a bee? Are you merely fluttering from service to service to feel good about having gone to church? Are you one who writes down everything but are untransformed? Or are you one who will receive the full truth from the Word of God?924
[Christian Living, Purpose; Transformation]
Matt. 18:3; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18
WHEN a woman is pregnant, it is natural for her body to change because of the new life growing within her. The baby inside is attached to the mother, piggybacking off of her life. The baby borrows nutrition from the mother. The mother’s body takes care of the growth of the baby naturally. The baby doesn’t have to work to grow. It just grows and transforms because of the connection. The changes happening to the body of the pregnant woman on the inside result in changes taking place on the outside. The woman is transformed. Her shape is changed. Milk is preparing to flow. Taste buds change. All of these changes happen naturally. Nothing is coerced.
When the Spirit of God within begins to transform us, the process of spiritual transformation is natural. Changes on the inside eventually show up on the outside.925
[Christian Living, Spiritual Growth; Transformation]
2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Peter 1:23–25
MANY people hate dieting. In an effort to lose weight, they are miserable. They are unhappy watching other folks eat things that they wish that they could. They spend all of their energy and effort focusing on what they can’t have. Many folks start diets, never to finish because they are so irritable and frustrated with the food they have to eat to lose weight. Their dieting choices for meals aren’t natural. They do not have a taste for the food they need to eat in order to reach their goal.
Now, if a person develops a taste for food that is good for them, they will naturally eat the right things and get the benefit of eating healthy. Real spiritual transformation happens when we allow the Spirit to change our tastes rather than trying to force behavioral changes with human effort alone.926
[Holy Spirit, Filling of; Transformation]
Ps. 42:1; 63:1
MANY people regularly carry breath mints on their person. Now, breath mints can do the job of covering up a problem for a little while but they don’t address the problem.
There is a new product called Breath Assure and it is different from a breath mint. It is not designed to be sucked on like most breath mints in order to change the taste in the mouth. It is designed to be swallowed so that it can enter the stomach and release oils that address the movement of the food and the effect of decay in the stomach that works its way up into the mouth.
Most times, in order for real change to occur, the heart has to be fixed first. A person can attempt to cover an issue with praise and worship or a “hallelujah” but that stuff doesn’t last. It is a transformed heart that produces transformed behavior.927
[Hard Heart; Sin, Dealing with]
Ezek. 11:19
A MAN had a clock hanging on the wall of his office. The hands on this clock could never seem to keep the right time. Something was always off with the hands. He put a little sign under it that said, “When you look at this clock, please don’t blame the hands. The problem is on the inside.”
A lot of our hands are off track, and a lot of our actions are off track, but the problem lies with a bad heart. This means that if you change the external without fixing the heart you haven’t fixed the root of the problem; you’ve only addressed the fruit of the problem. If you address the fruit and miss the root, you will only have a temporary fix.928
[Hard Heart; Sin, Dealing with]
Ezek. 11:19
DISCIPLESHIP is progress over time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like the farmer who went to the city for the first time. He saw a mall and had never seen a mall before. He was with his son and his wife. He said, “I’ve got to see this place. I’ve never seen anything like it.” So, they went in and started wandering around.
Inside the mall was a bank. When they walked inside the bank, they saw the vault. They didn’t quite know what it was because the farmer was used to saving his money in rudimentary ways. He would put it under his pillow or bury it in his backyard. They all stood there trying to figure out exactly what it was.
At one point a little old lady walked inside the vault. She was very old. She could barely walk and used a cane to move around. She walked shakily into the vault. About thirty seconds later, a beautiful, well-figured young lady comes out the vault. The farmer saw the old lady go in, and a gorgeous young woman come out. He leaned over to his son and said, “Hurry up, and go get your mother.” He wanted an instant transformation.
The farmer’s wife would not have been immediately transformed and neither will we be in our spiritual journey. Transformation doesn’t happen immediately; however, we do have control over the speed at which the process takes place.929
[Sanctification; Transformation]
2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Peter 2:2