Analysis Of How Jesus Transforms The Church

1. What information from this week’s articles might be helpful as you think through this case?

In the article, How Jesus Transforms the Church, Skip Ryan states that “Christ changes us by loving us.” “He purposes to love us.” He also states, “I want you to see the overwhelming, transforming, marvelous, empowering, equipping, and graceful love of Christ, which is only seen against the backdrop of how completely and totally unworthy of it you and I are.” “When someone loves you, it really has the catalytic power in your life to change you; when you are loved, you are transformed by that love, and the degree of the transformation usually correlates to the depth and extent of the love.” “Christ does not first make you holy and then love you.

They may help someone “feel better, but where is the true transformation of his life? Are these things even goals worthy of a biblical person? Where is love? Where is joy? Where is gratitude? Where’s obedience? Where’s the willingness to sacrifice? Where’s the courage to love our enemies in ways that are both merciful and yet tough-minded? Where are all the good things that are part of human life in Jesus’ image? Such self-confidence is not the image of Christ!” Which is the point…secular worldview counseling leads the counselee to find their identity in themselves or in the counselor or in the plan instead of in Christ alone. In the article by Paul Tripp, The Present Glories of Redemption, he takes the book of Ephesians and breaks it down to see exactly how we are to care and counsel because of the great work of Christ and His plan. “When we counsel people, we must find out what their real view of God is. We will often find that our counselees have a big gap between their functional “theology” and the truth. In other words, when they tell their story, God is not in it.” We as

Without that, we are stumbling around using our own wisdom to solve the problems that are devoid of Christ. Christ is THE way, THE truth, THE life…there is no other answer. We must not give out imperatives without the indicative. We must not use worldly wisdom. We must not be foolishly believing “every man’s way is right in his own eyes.” That is devoid of wisdom, which is devoid of Christ, which is godlessness and therein lies no answers but only instating idols. 1 Peter 1:3-4 “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful