We seem to have the plague of orange-black-spiked caterpillars all over our front entry.  They are the Oleander caterpillar and produce the Uncle Sam Moth (also called the  polka-dot wasp moth).  Once you see the  caterpillar you soon begin seeing the moths.  That is because they eat themselves full of leaves then crawl up somewhere and make a cocoon.  And, as we all know, they emerge a moth, or a butterfly if they are a butterfly caterpillar.  It is called metamorphosis.  We all studied the process early in elementary school.  I collected and hatched them.  I enjoyed learning the process, the types and habits of each.  They are all predictable, they all will change.  It is what happens.  They do not stay a caterpillar.

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Sadly, through the years, the term metamorphosis has changed in many areas of our lives.  Not sure why, but, it seems we wanted to make things ‘easier'(?).  If you ever watch a caterpillar spin it’s cocoon or chrysalis and then emerge, then you have witnessed the struggle as it comes out a new creature.  It is not easy.  There is work involved.  But, it is a moth or butterfly, it does not stay a caterpillar.  This is the way God created the process.  So when His word says you must be born again and become a new creature, why do so many these days stay a caterpillar.  They still crawl on their belly, eating leaves, living the worldly life of a worm. Their lifestyle does not change. They were designed to fly above the world as the butterfly; in the world but, not of the world.  They are a new creature.

The church has failed new believers.  I wonder if many are really saved.  They are not taught they are a new creature, leaving the worldly behind for the Heavenly Father’s World.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Yes, they walk among the world but, they are so transformed that the world spots them and knows them immediately.  They are changed, new creatures.

2 Corinthians 3:18 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

You can not be saved and still walk as the world walks.  You give up self and all its desires to walk daily with your Lord and Savior.  Old habits die and are left in the cocoon.  Old lifestyles are left behind where the caterpillar crawled.

James 1:23-25 (NASB)

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

Becoming a Christian is life changing.  Have you changed?

Renee’ Green Copyright 2018

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