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I am in the middle of a John Piper book, “God is the Gospel.” The crowd is saying, well duh —of course God is. This book is meaty, and I am enjoying seeing different perspectives that I had not considered. It is wonderful that God continues to cheer us on to grow which results in profound change.

The Word explains, “All of us, with no covering on our faces, show the shining-greatness of the Lord as in a mirror. All the time we are being changed to look like Him, with more and more of His shining-greatness. This change is from the Lord Who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) Piper gives us much to think about in this reference. The personal transformation assumes that we are changed into what we admire and fix our attention on. “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image.” We know this so from experience. Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero and the more intense your admiration, the more profound your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold him as we should, the change is profound.

Just my opinion but sometimes I think as Christ Followers, we can get ourselves in a little rut. We can get comfortable where we are with God. We pray the same, we say the same things and life is just a repetition of what we know about God. However, relationships require continued growth. Any relationship you have requires growth in order, for it to be healthy. Think about your relationships. The people you are close to are the people you continue to experience life with. When we stop experiencing life with people the relationship becomes distant. That is why co-workers can have a fantastic working relationship and then one person leaves and then they become just a memory of what they shared in that season. If you have ever moved away from a certain area and then go back to visit. It can be nostalgic. It is like re-runs because the growth has stopped.

In 2 Peter the Word says, “Continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our savior, Jesus Christ.” As Christ Followers let us agree that God desires us to change. If not, then there is no reason for him to give his all for us. In order, for us to change we must grow. It is just not possible to have profound change without there being growth. As spring is popping up all around us, I pray that you will see growth and follow suit. May you spend time with God even when it is not convenient, make yourself share God with others even when it is not comfortable; do what is required, so that you will not just be living a bunch of re-runs. Ask yourself what is God doing today? Step out and be a Christ Follower with profound change.

Yvette Perrin can be reached at theword2yvette@ gmail.com