Christian Hip Hop | Rap Artist Manafest – Transformed featuring Rel McCoy

Here are two key chapters that could well describe the life of a transformed person – 1 Corinthians 13 and 2 Peter 1:1-11.

My danger, especially because it was very important to me in growing my faith, is to think that transformation means what I look like in terms of my devotional practices. They are a means to an end but not the end itself – a transformed life.

The goal of a transformed life is love. A transformed person is somebody who genuinely loves God and genuinely loves people.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. – 1 Corinthians 13:1  ESV

Here in verse one I am challenged to understand that if I do not act out in love than all I am is noise – there is no spiritual value for words not spoken in love. Preaching to people without love does not produce true discipleship. Followers of Jesus are known by the way they love.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. – John 13:34-35  ESV

The word Jesus used here is the infamous word we know as agapē. The pattern of our love is “as I have loved you.” In other words, by our self-giving, sacrificial, unconditional love for one another. 

Simeon^[a] Peter, a servant^[b] and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:1  ESV

Another Greek word introduced here is doulos – servant. Doulos is one bound to another, but it is not what you might think. The Greek culture did look at this as something involuntarily – no choice whether you wanted to serve or not. It would seem that both Paul and Peter, in their respective passages of scripture were elevating the word, from the Old Testament, to mean one who has chosen to be a servant.  It is the picture today of absolute surrender. It is the servant’s love that motivates this full surrender.

So now, my transformed life now looks like a permanent relation of servitude to Jesus. All I have and all I am and all I will ever be is from Christ.