Transformation has many phases.  No one wakes up one day, and says, “you know what?  I have been wrong my whole life about such and so, and so today I am going to change.”  No, friends, we all know that we will hang on tooth and nail to any idea, opinion, thought, or behavior that we have adopted as part of our lives, even if we know deep down inside that they could be wrong.  Or even a teensy weensy bit wrong.  Or even a lot wrong.

It all has to start with some inward realization that things are not going right.  In the book, From Woodstock To Eternity, Dustin Morgan has achieved a level of success in the high flying drug dealing, hippie lifestyle, and should be relishing all the benefits of “The Kingdoms of this world and their glory.”  But, a gnawing reality start to impress itself upon his conscience, even in his drunken, hallucinating stupor.

“… Morgan quickly slides back into a continuous stupor of all day drinking and partying.  He starts losing his grip in many ways, spraining his ankle, stumbling around and cutting his bare feet on broken glass, forgetting where he put his money.  He does one more run with Agent Orange only to misplace thousands of dollars; stashing it where he thought he would never forget.  He starts shooting up cocaine until it becomes an uncontrollable addiction, draining money and energy from him like a big, black hole.

He is trying to satisfy all the goals of life with the full time pursuit of pleasure.  What is the

Work

goal of dealing dope?  Isn’t it to escape the lifelong curse of man to work for a living?  Now that you don’t have to work, what’s the goal of that?  To free you up to do what you want to do all day?  And what do most people want to do if they don’t have to work?  Party, party, party!!!  Right? 

After a few months of running around doing nothing all day, eating out at dinner, drinking the night away, Morgan starts to get bored and disillusioned.  Is this all there is to it?  Is this what life is all about; the end

Champagne on Ice

game?  Getting to the point where you don’t have to work so you can eat in restaurants, drink champagne, get high, and have steak and eggs for breakfast? 

When he left Woodstock, he had an obsession to escape forever the beans and rice syndrome of handouts and communal living.  Once he had enough money, he ate steak

Can you get tired of steak?

every chance he got.  But after a while, his “high on the hog” lifestyle gave him a totally unexpected revelation:  No matter how good something is, if you have enough of it, it gets old and routine.  The startling conclusion hits him,

“You get tired of steak.” 

The point here is that our earthly bodies are wired to become complacent with whatever becomes routine.  This is why people can adapt to living in homeless conditions or on welfare day after day, giving up any goals or dreams, and accept their reality.  It is also why highly successful people can begin to feel so accustomed to their opulent lifestyle that they are no longer grateful for it, or no longer think it gives them any satisfaction.

So, what is the solution?

You have to think it terms of Eternity!  You must become an Eternal Pioneer!  Everything

Seeing into Eternity

on this earth has an end and can come to the point where you can not get any more.  In Eternity, in Christ, we have an unlimited existence with Him that will continue forever.

Colossians 3:2 -4 …Set your mind on things above,

not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. 

From Woodstock to Eternity Excerpt:

When he was fourteen, he wanted to mock the rules of society and got his picture in the

From Woodstock To Eternity

paper for having long hair.  When he was sixteen, he snuck out of the house to hang out with the beatniks in Georgetown.  When he was eighteen, he went to Woodstock.  By the time he was twenty two, he had his own marijuana distribution network.  He got saved and started flying, but he never changed his stripes.  Everything he did in his adult life developed into a master plan to pursue the pleasures of the old world while reaping the benefits of the new.  Now, his plan is on trial, and the final verdict is obvious.  With a slab of sheet metal for a bed, and four walls of cinder blocks for a room, he has to admit to himself,

“It’s not working.”

Most Rehabilitation programs start with the acknowledgement that you need help.  Whether it is AA, Drug rehab, or Christian Ministries like Celebrate Recovery or Regeneration.  This is because, the One who is the power behind all Recovery, Jesus Christ, described the process in The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

Luke 15:17-19

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have

In the Pig Pen

bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 ‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 “and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” 

Before you can fix something in your own life, you have to admit that something is broken.  You will never move on to finding help and solutions without first coming to the conclusion that what you have been doing is not working.

Unfortunately, this process forces the difficult conclusion that we were wrong, and it sometimes takes a big hammer to break our pride enough to admit that.  For Dustin Morgan, God had to put him into a jail cell, with the threat of even greater jail time ahead if he didn’t change.

This is not a bad thing.  When you humble yourself and admit that what you have been doing is not working, God gives you grace and power and light to see the new direction.  That is why humility and brokenness is the Spark that ignites the Transformation.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

From the old ways

The one question radio interviewers seem to want answered concerning the book, From Woodstock to Eternity is:  “In one word, what would you say the main message of this book is?”

The answer is – Transformation

But not just any old transformation.  Dustin Morgan doesn’t go down easily.  His transformation is not a simple makeover like a visit to a make up artist or a plastic surgeon.  No, the reason this story can touch any one of us, is he fights tooth and nail to keep going his own way before he slowly makes the change from old to new.

Dustin has to come to a point where he realizes that the partying, drug dealing lifestyle, which he thought was the right way to go, was in fact destroying his life.  So, even though

New Man – New Wife

he resisted giving up his old ways, God stayed with him and ultimately brought him out of that lifestyle.

When God did finally bring him out of that lifestyle, what did He transform?  Just his heart?  Just his mind?  Did he change on the inside only to stay the same on the outside?  Did he insist that nobody judge him, but value him for what he truly was inwardly?

No.  Like the Scripture says, ALL things had to become new.  His heart AND his clothes.  His mind AND his speech.  Jesus doesn’t just transform one little bit of us – He transforms ALL of us, and every bit of our being should radiate the light of his glory.

2015  New Beginnings – Walking in Eternity

2 Corinthians 4:16 – 5:2

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,

In a New Year, we like to put away the old and look forward to the new.  We usually think of what will be new in our earthly lives, but God wants us to see a new beginning as to how we can walk in his eternal life.  He wants us to “earnestly desire to be clothed with our habitation from heaven.”

Mansion in Heaven

This does not mean waiting for our mansion in the sky – as if it is some tangible thing in heaven that we get to inherit.  The phrase, “a house becomes a home” is about all the house represents and exemplifies.  The memories, the victories, the emotions, the love, the decorations that set the tone.  The same is true for our heavenly home.

Strangers and Pilgrims

Hebrews 11:13-16

13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

To earnestly desire our habitation from heaven is to desire less out habitation here.  The first requirement is to change our perspective to see with eyes of faith that we have a city prepared for us.  Our job is to transform our earthly lives so that the ways of the heavenly country become our ways on earth.

My grandparents came into this country through Ellis Island from France.  When they set up residence, they made themselves “strangers and pilgrims” as far as France was

Ellis Island

concerned.  They no longer acted as though they were from there.  They stopped speaking French and doing French things, would not teach them to their kids, and put all their soul into living like Americans.

Press Toward the Goal

This is not to say we should disavow our ancestors, or our good earthly upbringing, but it is an analogy to show that while we are walking on this earth as representatives of Christ, we should do all we can to shun the ways of the world and put on the character qualities of Jesus.  He laid hold of us to live His life through us.  We are to press on to make that happen on a daily basis.

May He give all of us the wisdom and power to do this in this coming year.

Philippians 3:7-14

7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain  to the resurrection from the dead.

 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus

Copyright © 2015 John D. Cooper