Jim
November 2, 2009
Last night Pastor Bagwell spent a lot of time talking about how each converted Christian filled with the Holy Spirit must be changed completely to be effectively used by God. They must continue to give to God everything, their very existence, to receive the changed nature present in and by the Spirit.
By giving I mean to totally give of their selves, color, race, creed, station in life, aspirations, dreams, etc. All must be presented to the Lord on His alter as a sacrifice. What is not burnt up will be returned as the real substance of our lives.
Pastor related this transformation like that of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Not just a change of cloths or attitude or anything simple or external; but rather the complete metamorphosis of one body into a completely different one, gloriously beautiful to the Lord.
The ugly little caterpillar is a foraging engine designed to devour all vegetation in its path. Its life is one of destruction that is the reason it exists. Eat and eat until it is fat plump and juicy still remaining un-tasty to birds. After a summer of unrestrained gorging life comes to a halt as God changes the little worm’s very existence.
Have you ever noticed that they do not eat dandelions or crab grass? No! They go after the prized tomatoes, beans, tender young leaves on you shade trees; nothing but the best for these critters. Not like maggots that clean out the garbage can. No! They want the best of the best and then they want it all. Eating until they are fat and content.
Suddenly the God of the Universe causes them to slip away into a secluded place and to slip out of their caterpillar costume into a chrysalis; like they were attempting to hide out from the goings on in the world for a while. Is this the change that Pastor was talking about? Not quite yet.
It’s easy to think of a chrysalis as something a caterpillar makes, like a cocoon, but this isn’t really true. The body that the caterpillar reveals when it sheds its skin for the last time is the chrysalis. Along with the ability to occasionally twitch in response to threats, this shell is what protects the caterpillar while it transforms.
The transformation itself is amazing. Think of it as recycling, take something that isn’t useful anymore and make it into something new instead of just throwing it away — if you drop a plastic bottle off in the recycling bin, it can be melted down into an entirely different shape. This is what happens inside the chrysalis. Much of the body breaks itself down into imaginal cells, which are undifferentiated – like stem cells, they can become any type of cell. The imaginal cells put themselves back together into a new shape. A few parts of the body, such as the legs, are more or less unchanged during this process.
This process of complete transformation is known as holometabolism. The amount of time required to transform completely varies from one species to another, but in general it takes about two weeks. For species that survive the winter by staying in the chrysalis, it can take months.
After a caterpillar buries itself inside its cocoon, it waits to morph into a butterfly. The caterpillar does not simply shrink a bit and sprout wings. Instead, it sort of disintegrates into a puddle of ooze within the cocoon. If we were to open the cocoon halfway through the process, we would not find a half-caterpillar half-butterfly type creature, but a blob of goop.
The goop is made up of a bunch of individual cells (Like stem cells. Initially, these cells are blank slates, meaning that their fate is undecided. But they have great potential. Stem cells are pluripotent, which means that they can develop into every cell, every tissue and every organ in the body) that are all basically the same type of oozy cells. For whatever reason, after the caterpillar has turned into ooze, new types of cells start appearing. The original ooze cells are NOT changing into these new cells, but rather the new cells seem to come out of nowhere. They just appear out of thin air so to speak.
These new cells are called imaginal cells and they are so completely different from the original ooze cells that they are thought to be a virus or some other form of enemy so the ooze cells begin attacking the imaginal cells. However, even though the imaginal cells are being killed off for not fitting in, they still keep showing up, more and more of them.
Eventually, the imaginal cells begin to find each other and cluster together. Like attracts like, and the clusters begin to join up with other clusters. The original ooze cells still keep attacking them but the imaginal cells continue to multiply and cluster together.
These cells become a large community and they switch gears from simply being a group of like-minded cells into the programming cells of the butterfly.
Some imaginal cells start changing into wing cells, some start changing into antenna cells some start changing into digestive tract cells, and so on. They are no longer imaginal cells but become butterfly anatomy cells. As we all know, if left alone to do his thing, the butterfly eventually emerges as a completely new entity from the original caterpillar
The above few paragraphs are a scientific explanation of the morphing process. It sounds a bit mysterious until you realize that it is God who is making the changes to the goop. It is His marvelous plan that it taking place to reform the caterpillar into the majestic butterfly. Not by accident doe this take place but by the Divine Hand of God, Creator of the Universe.
Now I think this is the changing that Pastor was referring to; a complete change into something totally different than what was there previously. That is what must happen to a Christian to make him totally usable by God for His chosen purpose.
All that makes up a person is still needed but it must be given over to God to be reformed into a new creation. A sanctified recreated glorious being, similar to a butterfly in comparison to the caterpillar it once was. The energies and dreams and passions of the former self are changed to match the Holy design of the Creator. The new creation is more glorious and usable by the Father of us all.
Of course the plight of the butterfly being released from its transformation cocoon is not an easy one. There is no help from the outside world or a supernatural releasing from God. The new creation must struggle to exit as a whole. The process of struggling to be set free actually makes the butterfly stronger and more able to withstand the elements of the world.
If someone would help the butterfly escape the wrappings severe damage would occur and its wings would not develop for flight. The act of struggle pumps needed blood into the wings and makes them strong.
Each recreated being is similar yet different from all the others. Each one has it own design and God given purpose to fulfill.
As caterpillars we Christians eat up all of the teaching and training that we can. We often stop here and merely become fat in the Spirit but really useless for Gods chosen purpose. Yet we need the fattening to make us fully able to be transformed. A starving shriveled up caterpillar will no more make a beautiful butterfly than a shriveled up starving Christian will make a dynamic Spirit filled witness for God.
Once filled with all that we can hold God will then put us in a transformation if we allow Him to do so. In that transformation we have a choice, not like the caterpillar, to give our all to Him to be changed.
We too go through a period of struggling to be set free. Nothing is automatic in Gods world. We must want to be set free. We must put up an effort to put the changed man into action to perform the new marvelous destiny set forth by God.
Once we have been changed we will be the mighty man or woman that God envisioned us to be before the beginning of time.
Then we can accomplish all of the glorious works set before us. Like the butterfly we will then be creatures of prosperity. We will be used to give life as we sow seeds of salvation into the lost world, as the butterfly pollinates the flowers to produce a harvest of seeds. We will fly with wings as eagles high above the dirt of the earth. People will marvel at our abilities and the heights we can soar to.
So eat heartily of the succulent feast presented before you, no matter where you attend church. Every anointed minister is designed by God to serve you food for eternal growth. Fatten up for the journey that lies ahead. There will be a time of intense struggle as you give yourself over to be changed.
Changed you will certainly become; changed into the marvelous beautiful creature that will bring Glory to Him who designed you from the foundation of the earth. What an Awesome God we serve.