What does it mean to be transformed rather than merely informed?

To be informed is a good desire. It is a desire we were created to recognize and cultivate. God has revealed Himself and He desires to be known by us. But when we pause and think about it - what sets us apart from those who can study the Bible like any other ancient text or textbook? Transformation. Our information and pursuit of information should always lead to some level of transformation. This is what Jesus demands. This is what the gospel demands. This is what C.S. Lewis points out in his “trilemma”. His idea is worth quoting at length.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

The information that God has presented us with in the Bible calls us to transformation. What is this transformation? I think it can be anything. It is the first call to turn from the weight of our sin and fall into the grace that Jesus has offered us. It is the tug toward radical generous living with those around us. It is the deep longing to view God as gracious, sovereign, eternal, compassionate, and so on. 

When we trade transformation for information alone, we run the risk that is a tale as old as time. The risk of becoming pharisaical is slippery and constant. Even with the best intentions, we are never free from the temptation to draw near to God with only our minds and never our heart, soul, and strength. And after all, is this not the call of the greatest command? 

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. (Matthew 22:36-38)

This verse is at the heart of the question we are asking. We all must reach a point when we ask ourselves if it is okay to love and serve God with anything but absolutely everything we have. Jesus Himself said this is the greatest commandment and one of the commandments which all of Scripture hangs. Does that seem inconsequential? So, let us seek transformation. Let us search Scripture for how we can better reflect our Creator. Let us live in community and seek encouragement. Let us speak often to our Father so we can better know His heart for us. Let us worship often so that we never forget our place before a holy God. This greatest commandment truly reveals the heart of our God. He is a God who desires our hearts, not merely our minds.