TOPICAL POSTS by SERIES | Norma L. Brumbaugh

A spiritual awakening changes everything.

The best thing you could ever do for yourself is to have a spiritual transformation. A spiritual transformation is like a spiritual makeover. It changes everything about you, inside to out. However, a spiritual transformation is not just about growing in the Lord. It is much, much more.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
–Matthew 7:7

What spiritual transforming entails.

Spiritual transformation is when God becomes your enough.
Spiritual transformation is when God comes first.
Spiritual transformation is when you quit doing spiritual life your way.

Why would you want to spiritually transform? It will give life to your spiritual walk. You will strengthen in your daily interactions. You will know the Source of life, God Eternal, in a very real way. You will walk with God, and that is truly amazing awesomeness.

Spiritual life is a journey, not a destination.

I never set out to have a spiritual transformation. After it had changed my life, I knew what to call it. I set out to know God without holding anything back. I wanted nothing to block my pursuit of Him. That was it. God took it from there.

Did you ever have something happen to you that knocked you down and changed your life, your thinking, the way you process life, and altered the way you interact with others?

When life happens.

I had one of those life events when I lost my younger sister. She was 33, and I was 38, when she passed away. My kids and I had just been to visit her three weeks before at her home in Beaverton, Oregon. We went for a walk in the park and ate a meal at her home. My kids loved their Aunt Lou.

My sister committed suicide. When we lost Lois to suicide, it destroyed me more than all the other bad things that had happened to me. My sister and I were raised in the same home, with the same parents, with a strong Christian presence in our lives. She had followed the faith until the last two or three years of her life.

What was missing?

My sister’s suicide made me question why this had happened to her. Why hadn’t God been enough for her. Where had we failed her? Why had her Christian life and heritage failed her? I wondered what had been missing that had caused her to be empty and lost. Lois was successful at work, had loyal friends, and was talented, intelligent, and witty.

This started me on a hunt. I wanted to know what had been missing in my sister Lois’s life and why Christianity had not been enough in her life. I believed part of the answer involved our ‘brand’ of Christianity, a lack within fundamentalism to go beyond spiritual obedience and head knowledge to address human need and human suffering.

What I found.

The first answer to the complex question came in the form of an awareness. The more I pursued the path to knowing God, the more I became aware that our Christian life is about a living relationship with Father, Son, and Spirit. This relationship with the Godhead is life-changing, life-giving, and life-enabling. It’s not that the other was bad in and of itself, it was that it fell short of the most important aspect of following Christ, a spiritual relationship.

If you are like me, and you were not taught about living relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit, then here’s your opportunity to spiritually awaken to this phenomenal truth. God wants to be known. He wants to interact with you. God desires living relationship with you. This living relationship with God will cause you to become spiritually real, personally authentic, and fully alive.

I want you to want it.

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Next in series: Middle: Spiritual Transformation, Part 3 of 5

Home Page: Spiritual Transformation

Introduction and Overview.

We will barely scratch the surface in this series. In some ways, it will be like a launchpad, launching you ‘further still’ in your spiritual journey. I want you to want this. I’m going to lead you there, so you can see what it is.

The word transformation indicates an end result. As Christians we are transitioning, transforming, and will continue to spiritually transform until we arrive home with our Father in heaven. As we look back on our spiritual lives, it is then that we have proof that our lives have spiritually transformed.

There is life in this.

We are spiritually alive. When we are spiritually transforming, the dead state of pretense, of pretending, of playing a ‘spiritual’ part, no matter how well intentioned, is simply gone. We have left the phony stuff behind. We have come alive in our spirit. We are energized by the Spirit of God.

Why are we transforming?

What is the point of transforming, of transitioning? It is this; we are being made in the likeness of God’s dear Son. We are transforming into His’ Christ-likeness. Our lives are becoming authentic. Christ is becoming more visible in us. Christ is being seen in us–in our reactions, in our thoughts, in our behaviors, and in our love. It’s all about Christ. It’s all about Christ having His way in us. We are not our own anymore.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
–Romans 12:2

My healing journey.

I’ve been on my healing journey for almost two decades now. It has revolutionized my life. I have come to know God better. He and I have a close relationship with intimate fellowship. The healing came along with my intention to seek God to know Him. God knew my heart.

I experience God as real, kind, and loving.

What is God like? God is glorious. Period. His glory touches everything. God is approachable, kind, compassionate. He loves. He cares. He helps. He keeps. He is trustworthy. He is also just, fair, and true. He is all of His attributes. God takes us by the hand and He leads the way. He takes us further still, further than we anticipate.

Before I expand on this subject, I have a disclaimer. This topic, spiritual transformation, applies only to those who already have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Christ is the way of salvation to all who believe. I invite you to accept the gift of salvation that God through Christ offers you.

A spiritual transformation can be had.

It starts with wanting it. If you don’t want it, it’s not going to happen. You won’t get far without having some skin in the game. It takes you and it takes God, and it takes a desire for God, and it takes coming together in an honest relationship where you don’t hold back.

Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee, Op’ning to the sun above.

Next in series: Growing: Spiritual Transformation, Part 2 of 5