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I think what you’re writing is true, and it’s the way I’d like to start living. However, I’m not sure how to make the transition. I’m still attracted to a man who I now know isn’t right for me. How do I break that off without hurting him, and how do I keep myself from being attracted to artificial masculinity in the future?
Did you know that transitioning is always a three-step process…and you’ve actually taken the first two steps? First, you have to become aware of something different. Second, you have to decide you want that “something different.” Then, all that remains is the tiny problem of getting there!
Christianity is all about transitions, starting with the first big one of going from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness to God’s kingdom. In that transition we barely do anything. We can’t. Jesus does all the doing, we simply say yes to what He has done.
But once we’re in, there are lots of other things that need to happen in order for us to become “conformed to His image,” as Romans 8:29 puts it. It’s a lifelong process, and (after salvation) it’s the most important transition we ever experience.
The best way for us to understand how that process works is to eliminate the two wrong ways to think about it. Wrong thinking #1: It’s all up to me. Wrong thinking #2: It’s all up to Him.
What’s the right way to think about it? The Bible describes it rather mysteriously. Philippians 2:12-13 says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” In other words, it’s all up to both of us!
I know that’s a little confusing. Okay, it’s a lot confusing. So I’m going to take you to another part of the Bible where I think the process is described more clearly. Paul told the church in Rome, “[God] condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3,4).
Let’s say you live near Rome and want to get to Rome. There is a nice road leading into the city. But you won’t get one inch closer to Rome until you get on that road, and (more importantly) you actually start walking in the right direction!
The next verse spells it out a little more. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.”
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