I also wrote today’s devotional for 106.3 WCTL as part of McLane Church’s week for their Power Up Devotionals daily feature. Here’s the link to listen, or just read it below:

Morphing

I think that WCTL General Manager Ron Raymond agrees with me in saying that one of the most impact-full authors and speakers in both of our faith journeys is John Ortberg. For nine years, Dr. Ortberg was a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, and he currently pastors at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California. He has written some amazingly simple, yet challenging books about the Christian life, which reflect his passion about “Spiritual Formation” or how people become more like Jesus. My favorite book of his is The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. In this book, Ortberg explains that the goal of our spiritual lives is to be transformed, to undergo a metamorphosis or simply said, to morph. What do we want to morph into? Nothing less than the image of God’s Son, Jesus, as Paul says in Romans 8:29. Ortberg says that to be transformed or to morph means that we “don’t just do things Jesus would have done; but we find ourselves wanting to do them.” We can become the right sort of person, who can then be a part of changing the world for Christ. In the book he talks about concrete things we can do to truly transform our lives to be more like Christ, indeed to focus on loving God and loving people. He talks about training daily in activities that can help us gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it. John Ortberg identifies practices like celebration, slowing down, servanthood, confession, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, the practice of humility and secrecy, and reflection of Scripture as being key ways how we can not just play in this Christian life, but to morph indeed into the reflection of Christ that we all truly desire. It’s morphing time.