God transformed me, even when I didn’t know I needed transforming. He started while I was still in the Catholic Church.
Here is the entire Scripture passage:
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
God’s Word will transform you. But you have to do your part first.
As the verse says, transformation happens by way of the renewal of our minds. And there is nothing finer to put into your mind than thoughts that came from the Mind of God: the Bible.
Toward that end, God transformed me by using two things to get His Word into me. One was a person; the other was a situation.
The Person
In the mid-1980’s, Joanne and I attended a three-evening parish retreat. We had heard the speaker, a Catholic priest, at our church the previous Sunday, and were sufficiently impressed to attend the retreat for all three evenings. I remember how, on one of the sessions, he preached from John 3:16: “…God so loved… that He gave His only son…”. The priest explained what would have been happening to Jesus — from a medical point of view — while He was being scourged and then nailed to a cross. All I remember (I’m thinking back to the mid 1980’s) is that I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be so cruel to another human being.
One thing the priest said that really astonished me was this: Jesus would have suffered and died on the cross FOR ME even if I were the only person in the world!
The real take-away for me was the eye-opening understanding that the Bible was filled with principles that I could apply into my own life. WOW!
During the months and years that followed, I began to be intrigued by Bible sermons Joanne listened to as she did her chores. She was listening to a Bible preacher, and his message was very compelling. His teaching began to feed my hunger for the Word of God.
The Situation
I can literally attribute the beginning of my Bible learning to the fact that there is no dishwasher appliance in our kitchen.
Let me explain that.
Every household works out its own division of labor. For reasons that are unimportant, I have the task of standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes.
I doubt anyone would dispute the notion that washing dishes by hand day-after-day is tedious, if not downright boring.
That having been said, doing the dishes does have one redeeming feature: it requires no intense thought.
As an antidote to the tedium of dish washing, I scheduled my task so that I could listen to Bible teaching on the radio.
That’s when I really began to learn the Bible – with my arms up to my elbows in soapy dish water. I bet I’ve had thousands of hours of Bible teaching preached into my ears that way.
There is a wonderful life principle here: by doing what I just described, I turned adversity into advantage.
But I did more than just listen while doing the dishes. The Holy Spirit took hold of me in such a wonderful way. I couldn’t get enough of God’s Word.
Seven Actions By Which God Transformed Me
- I chose to listen to Bible teaching regularly – virtually every weekday.
- I chose to believe that the literal Words of God were intended for me.
- I obtained copies of some of the message series and listened to them.
- I took notes on what I was hearing. I even transcribed some of them.
- I looked up, read, and marked the relevant Scripture passages in my Bible.
- I wrote out many Scriptures on 3 x 5 recipe cards, and memorized them.
- I looked for opportunities to discuss and share them with others.
To say it another way: I chose to take God’s Word seriously!
I recognized that knowing His Word was so important that I chose to make it my top priority.
That list describes practices I’m doing to this day. Even as I’m writing this, I have a Bible message on the radio in the background. I paused just now, to add another verse to the list I plan to internalize.
About 98 percent of my Bible knowledge first came to me by way of audio messages.
Yet, many of the people I know don’t care to listen to audio messages; they all want video.
I don’t get it. It’s nice to be able to see the speaker, but faith comes from hearing the Word of God.
Or… perhaps it’s because all of them have a dishwasher appliance in their kitchen. {:-)
NEXT: The Night I Stood Up To The Devil
- Jan
Comments with links will be marked as spam and deleted
As I was reading this, I began to get angry in my heart. I have been praying to God, reading daily. I am sure i could always do more, but i also am human and will always be a sinner. I need God to transform me, yet he ignores my cry out for help. At 56 I’m losing hope, life has been hard. I’m angry and the world we live in, i want to end it. I should not feel that kind of hatred in my heart. Here we are.
I like to read your articles. When I read them i feel in peace, God bless you jan.
I READ ON HOW JESUS CLOBBERED THE DEVIL MATTEHEW 4 : 1- TO 11
aMEN
I’ve been struggling with anxiety,depression and paranoi for almost a decade and I believe the devil is doing this to me…I keep thinking about end times stuff.. the devil is playing me… I keep fearing about end times.I love Jesus.. it’s just that lately I’ve been giving into the devil..I hear voices in my head and I don’t think their from god or his angels…The voices keep telling me to ignore somebody when really it’s the devil or his demons trying to take away my relationships with my friends all because I thought someone I thought said or whispered something about me when all reality it’s the devil making it not realistic..The devil and his demons are trying to make my friends become not my friends anymore because he’s leading me away from god,Jesus and the holy spirit..he wants me to lose friends..I don’t want to lose friends..I love my friends,family and most importantly Jesus… I really need prayer for because I don’t want to lose friends or lose my relationship with Jesus.. One time I came home from work when I was at a former workshop I used to work at..well I had this friend of mine say I’m not ur friend no more..so when i came home I started to burst out with anger..I threw a fire extinghuser at the stove and punched a hole in the glass window.I had to go to the mental hospital..so they put me on better meds to help me calm down.I come back to work and about a week or so later my so called friend comes back to me and starts being nice.So maybe it was me that made him mad..but spiritually I think the devil was getting inside of me and trying to make my friendship over with.The devil has been trying to have me lose friends..and quite frankly I’m getting tired of it.So please pray for me guys I really could use the prayers so that I way I won’t be in fear and still have a healthy relationship with my friends..I love Jesus and I know he can heal me.
Thank you. I don’t know if you still check this page. Or how long ago you wrote all this. I pray you are still strong in the Lord. I am struggling with very high anxiety and fear. I am reading alot of what you’ve wrote and trying to resist the devil as he wants me to give up and look at something meaningless . Thank you for taking the time to write all this as you’re helping many people. I will continue to read more on this site and pray it helps me stop all this fear inside me.
Hi, Marie.
The things I have written are things I wish I had known back years ago. It is always my hope that by sharing these things it will help others to know that someone else has gone through these trials and now lives to help others get through their own trials.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with God . It really inspired me to re-build my relationship with God , I need God in my life 24/7 God is Great praise the Lord .
Angelo, I’m glad to be a part of that process for you. May God bless you. ~ jan
I am going through difficulty at the moment. I know God is real and he will come through for me. Thank you for this article.
I am going through storm at the moment. I know God is real and he will come through for me. Thank you for this article.
Teresea, I am so excited to read of your courage in the storm. It means God has a plan for you. It’s just for a season.
Remember what Job said when he was in his trial:
But as you probably know, you cannot do this by your own strength. You gotta stay connected to God.
Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
The words in your post seem to be rubning off the scren in Chrome.
I’m not sure if this is a format ssue or something to do with brwser compatibility
but I thought I’d post to let yyou know.
The design look great though! Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Manyy thanks
I wonder if it could be monitor resolution. My settings are 1920 x 1080. (Not sure of that makes any sense to you.) And I also am using Google Chrome. Wish I could see what you are describing. I’ve been working on making it “responsive” so that it should re-configure to fit any device. ~ Jan
This post is actually quit interesting in many different ways.I just love this transforming post of the truth.it has uplifted me and shows me that god is easy and simple and not difficult at all.
I’m so glad I came across this info…
Start Here
Back To Top