Recently, a friend told me the story of how she found a chrysalis hanging from an old wardrobe in one of her church’s buildings. She showed me pictures and shared how surprised she was when she saw the “bloodstains” streaked on the wall next to its old shell after the caterpillar had broken out, transformed. She and her friends went looking for the new creation, knowing that it had to escape and get outside so that it could fly. They found the poor thing two days later behind some furniture, dead.
God created a lesson in there for us as Christ’s followers who are single.
Those streaks weren’t bloodstains, it was meconium, the reddish-colored waste product stored up in the cocoon while the caterpillar was transforming itself into a butterfly. It may have instinctively known that this meconium would be formed and would need to be disposed of when it was forming its cocoon to hibernate. When he was completely done with his transformation, he struggled to get out of his shell and let the meconium burst away from him, like all butterflies should and must. However, the unfortunate creature did not make it all the way to the place where he needed to be, where he was created to be—outside—and consequently died.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]” (AMP).
Like my friend’s butterfly, when we were first created in the flesh, we were created with the possibility to become more, much more. It is in our spiritual DNA to be changed and reach our ultimate destiny as changed creatures. Untransformed, we were bound to the earth to crawl spiritually, like caterpillars, and become targets for larger animals who like to eat them. If the caterpillar were to make it to the butterfly stage but not complete it by drying its wings, then strengthening them flying outdoors, it would still die, like our unfortunate friend’s unknowing captive. Caterpillars were made to be transformed into butterflies. Have you ever thought about that?
We humans were made for transformation.
We humans were made for transformation. Click To TweetWe were not originally created to crawl around below under the burden of sin and the sentence of guilt, at the mercy of every demon and spiritual predator around, creating relational conflicts and destroying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We were created for more than that, much more.
Like butterflies, God built it into us to reflect God’s beauty, creativity and glory, see beautiful views from high vistas, have uninterrupted access to God, and flit quickly and artfully past many potential dangers; Ephesians 2:10. We were to trust in God as our source of knowledge, wisdom, authority, and power; Genesis 1:26-31 and 2:15-17.
When the federal head of the human race, Adam, sinned in the perfect environment, the entire human race that would become his descendants lost everything; Genesis 3:6-24, Romans 5:12 & 19. The Bible teaches that the enlightened, 100% use of our brain died and immediately went dark; Romans 1:21 and Ephesians 4:18. He passed down to all his descendants the sin gene, that permanent destruction of our spiritual DNA’s sensitivity to God. At The Fall of Man in Genesis chapter 3, they—which is we—lost our lofty spiritual heritage of freedom, unlimited access to true knowledge and wisdom, authority over our planet and the spirit world, and the ability to love, respect, and communicate vulnerably, authentically, and lovingly with other humans.
The only way we can regain what our original forefathers lost for us is to be transformed back to what they were before The Fall of Man. To do this, we must be transformed “back into the future,” back into a new creature from the inside out, like my friend’s caterpillar that became a butterfly.
Have you ever become a “new creature”?
When and how did you become a new creature, Christian, a follower of Christ?
What has changed about you since that date or time?
There must be something that has changed and stayed changed about you. Change that remains permanent is part of transformation. As I’ve said in a previous blog (3/27/16 “Something Old, Something New”), the Greek word for new in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “kainos,” meant “something recently made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn, of a new kind, unprecedented, novel, uncommon, unheard of;” see the online Blue Letter Bible, Classic Version http://www.blbclassic.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2537&t=KJV”).
Unlike that hapless butterfly, we have to make it all the way through our transformation. Whether quickly or gradually, we must go through every step of our transformation to become whole.
The process of being transformed begins by letting Jesus conduct the initial transformation. He will, in a nanosecond’s transaction, change our spiritual core from being spiritually dead and unresponsive to the things of God, to that which is given new life, Romans 8:5-8 & 13. He will change our spiritual citizenship from hell to heaven, Ephesians 2:19, Hebrews 13:14, Philippians 3:20. Be forewarned that the world’s currency of good works cannot be used in heaven; the holy righteous power of Christ is the only currency accepted there.
In the process of being transformed, we also absolutely have to lose the “meconium” from our former lives, those leftover icky-nasty-waste by-products that resulted from our fleshly, sinful, untransformed former selves which the Bible calls “the old man;” Romans 6:16, 19 & 21-23, Ephesians 4:22, 1 Peter 1:14.
You know how dead things stink, rot, contaminate everything around them, and eventually disintegrate? And, finally, you know how those dead things often disintegrate into the soil to fuel the natural circle of life right next to where they died?
You, Christ’s single, do NOT want to fuel the natural, fleshly, carnal, self-centered life
right next to your new soul and that was once totally your life when you lived in the deadness of your sins. Most of you know exactly what I am talking about. (I don’t want to rattle through “a list of sins” in case I miss yours!) Suffice it to say that if you were living any sort of lifestyle that Christ didn’t live, it would be best for you to get out of it completely; physically, if you can. Losing the “meconium” of your past life is an important part of your getting all the way through your transformation. Let it get away from you.
Push it away when you need to. You don’t want a dead, stinking, rotten, contaminating, disintegrating lifestyle wrapping itself back around you. “Flee temptation!” says the Bible (2 Timothy 2:22, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
Have you, Christ’s single, gotten all the way through your transformation?
What, or who, do you need to lose so that you may press forward all the way into the new life He has started inside your heart?
Consider what may happen if you do not change what you can change: you could revert back into it. Then your second spiritual state will be worse than the first time you were stuck.
You don’t want to be like Proverbs 26:11 or 2 Peter 2:20-22. You have to decide that the struggle to get out of the cocoon and leaving behind your meconium are worth freedom and flying and destiny. Where is no struggle, there is no progress. To survive spiritually and become viable in Christ, you must make progress in your relationship with God, not by forcing it from sheer muster, but through trusting and obeying Him.
Remember the negative aspects of what you left behind.
Remember what awaits you at the end of your life.
Remember Who awaits you at the end of your life.
Fight for the right things—your future, which will impact the future of your family and friends.
Choose wisely, my friend.
Where there is no struggle, there is no progress. Booker T. Washington
REFERENCES
Earth’s Birthday Project. How to Care For Painted Lady Butterflies 8/8/16. http://earthsbirthday.org/butterflies/butterfly-faqs accessed 9/25/16
