We are Transformed

“I want to be His child, but not His disciple,” said Hagar. 

Hagar’s family has been mystified by her relentless research in the Bible and being drawn so strongly to anything Christian. They left no stone unturned in trying to make Islam attractive to her. In fact, her Muslim father sent her to have ballet classes and training, even though the society in Egypt has grown to have strict measures on modesty and how to dress like a good Muslim woman. It’s impressive how her father is so open minded and seeks every means to keep her in cheerful spirit, even dancing with her and making her laugh all the time. She is still even much more interested in the Bible and becoming fully rooted in Christ. She has asked me to mentor her and disciple her and I gladly accepted. 

However, she can’t get over the fact a good many of the Christian ministers she’s run into in Egypt keep presenting Christianity to her as though it was another form of Islam. Legalism is the common pitfall of society in the Middle East. Good Christians don’t drink this or that, so she is told. Good Christians don’t make that kind of mistakes. They don’t do this or that. A long list of do’s and don’t s. So why did Christ come down to us to save us if we can be perfect on our own?, she wonders. Hagar knows quite well that it is because she is a sinner who can’t save herself that Christ came, and it is on His righteousness that she fully leans rather than on her being just “a good girl.” Hagar is right: The Lord is our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). Why can’t Christians see it isn’t a rule list, but Him? 

Then still wonders Hagar, “what does it mean for me to be a disciple of Christ?”

As His disciple, I follow after Him, wherever He goes I go, and His ways become mine. It has everything to do with being transformed into His image rather than what I do or don’t do. Out of my state of being, I’m empowered by love to do works that reflect repentance and being in harmony with the will of God. It is the Lord that we primarily seek and deny ourselves so that He may become everything, the Lord increasing in us and we decrease. The Lord sitting on the throne of the heart and the self in us is crucified with Christ. All this is about being and becoming, and it is what makes the Christian faith different from Islam or any other religion for that matter. Our God is real and through His love we are transformed to become real. In the following of His footsteps we are not deprived or restricted by the laws but filled with desire to be more like Him.