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There is Something Spiritually Transformative About Being the Recipient of God’s Love…
That modifies our motives for obedience.
In 2 Corinthians 5:14, Paul reveals the motive that drove his ministry, saying, “Christ’s love compels us.”
There was something spiritually transformative about being the recipient of God’s love that modifies our motives for obedience.
A couple of chapters earlier, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul writes, “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.” The Greek word for transformed is metamorphoō (μεταμορφόω) from which we get the English word metamorphosis. Metamorphoō is composed of two words, meta and morph. Meta = great and morph = change. Like an earthbound caterpillar weaves a cocoon only to emerge with the ability to fly, so the believer is transformed when enveloped by the love of Jesus.
Theologically, we call this transformation sanctification. Like a butterfly progressively changes in the cocoon, we experience a progressive change in our lives. If the goal of our change is to be more like Jesus (“made into his likeness”), then sanctification is nothing less than learning to love like Jesus — to love…
