THE BUTTERFLY ANALOGY

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2 NASB)

This is your Sunday Shore meditation. As I have said previously, and I am sure you are in agreement by now, it is important to take notes as you listen to Sunday sermons. In addition to taking notes, it is also imperative, important that you review your sermon notes. By doing so, you will retain more, and with what you retain, you will be prepared and able to reach new spiritual heights.

Pastor M. R. King preached on “Renewing Your Mind,” using the passage above as his text. You can hear the whole message if you go to the Salt Of The Earth Facebook page or you can see it on YouTube. The main points you will hear our, (1) Reject the mold, (2) Replace Your Wiring, and (3) Reveal the Transformation.

Pastor, as usually is the case, had some great analogies to help us understand the specific message that God sent through Him specifically for you and me. The analogy that stood out the most for me was the metamorphosis of the butterfly. Pastor described how the butterfly starts out as an egg, When the egg hatches you have a caterpillar that does nothing but feed on leaves, doing nothing else but eating to bring about further development. The caterpillar, when it becomes full grown, it stops eating and enters it’s the pupa stage where it enters is chrysalis. Eventually, the chrysalis opens and the butterfly comes out. Even at this stage, more development is needed so that the butterfly can go into full flight. Now, I’m not a lepidopterist, a scientist of biologist who studies butterflies and moths, but I understand the transformation, the metamorphosis that takes place in the life cycle of the butterfly. While I’m not a lepidopterist, I did stay at a Holiday Inn at one time in my life (smile), and furthermore I am somewhat of a theologian.

So, the analogy was easy to understand and apply to my spiritual development. My transformation is ongoing as a believer. I went from a beginning to where I focused on feeding from the word of God and on benefitting from my experiences with God that lead me to invite you to taste and see that the Lord is good. When I grew to a mature stage, not perfect, but mature and/or maturing, I spent more time, like the butterfly, in my personal chrysalis, studying and reflecting on the word of God, cutting of the noise of my culture’s sinful influences, that which is obviously opposite of what God expects from His people. Eventually I emerged, almost ready to take flight, but I found that more transformation had to take place. Like the new butterfly, I had to do some waiting in my development. The butterfly had to wait until its wings, burdened down with the weight of dampness to dry. In my development, I had to wait until I lost the weight of the sins that so easily entangled me, as it does all of us. That’s something to remember through our life cycle. Eventually, like the butterfly who laid new eggs to produce new caterpillars that would grow and evolve into butterflies, I became aware of my responsibility to bring about new birth and reproduction in the kingdom. No, God does not need new butterflies, but He desires new converts who will be transformed and eventually become individuals who perpetuate the cycle of life for the Lord’s church and look forward to their eternal award when one glad morning, they fly away.

Where are you in your transformation? Have you continued your Christian development? Shouldn’t we all? Think about these things, Have a great day. Be blessed!   

Committed to the climb,

Mark L. King