Becoming A Woman of God

What does it take to become a Woman of God once you have accepted Jesus Christ into your heart? Let’s look at this process and compare it to that of a butterfly. 

There are four stages to becoming a butterfly called “metamorphosis”, which means, “the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages”. In a Christian's life, you should see a dramatic change in character, speech, attitude and appearance. This conversion from immature to mature does not happen at the beginning or at the end. It’s happening ‘during the journey’.

The mother butterfly finds the perfect plant to lay eggs on. She is very particular in which plant she chooses, so her babies will be healthy. When the egg grows to a certain size, the caterpillar eats its way out of the egg. This would be considered being born again in a Christian's life. Accepting Jesus as your Savior is the first step to a whole new, everlasting life. 

Now you need to be equipped! In the metamorphic cycle, after the eggs are laid and the caterpillar grows, it has now entered the Larva stage. The larva eats its own eggshell and everything around it. At this stage, it’s very hungry. It eats so much that it outgrows its skin and has to shed it—this process is called molting.

This is like a baby Christian on milk. That milk is the Word of God. You should be so hungry, you can’t be satisfied with just a little. You should “eat” on the Word of God daily. This is where your strength and nourishment come from—you learn the enemy’s tactics and how to fight back. Without the right instruction, predators (Satan) will come and try to consume you. 

In Hebrews 4:12 KJV, it says “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The Bible is your weapon to fight against Satan, to separate the good and evil intentions of your heart. It’s also living and active in our lives to grow us closer to God and to help us in our fight against sin!

Since receiving Jesus into your heart and reading the Bible daily, the Holy Spirit begins working on your character. Like the butterfly, you've consumed all the nourishment you can—devouring every leaf around you—until you've become spiritually obese. You now enter the Pupa stage. In this stage, you have separated yourself from everyone and created a cocoon. The Pupa finds a branch to hang onto while it hardens into a Chrysalis. About 10-14 days later, the shell cracks and the butterfly struggles to emerge.

This is the most important stage for a Christian. You are not a baby Christian anymore, but not a mature Christian either. In the cocoon, the “Secret Place,” the Lord begins His work of sanctifying your heart. To be sanctified, you must distance yourself from the enemy of your soul. 

The Secret Place is lonely, but it is necessary to hear the voice of God. It is imperative you overcome distractions, for this becomes the “do or die” stage. Are you willing to be stripped of your identity from the world? You can’t have one foot in Heaven and the other in the world. That’s lukewarm. This is where some turn back to the world. They feel it’s too hard, so they give in. 

Much is birthed out of the Secret Place. It’s where your spirit longs to dwell because the Lord is already there waiting for you. You are completely safe and protected under His wings (Psalm 91). 

In the Secret Place, the Lord circumcises your heart by cutting away the areas that reflect the world, so He can pour in more of Himself. It can be painful when “who you thought you were supposed to be” is dying. You must allow your hopes and dreams to die for His dreams to come to life. His plans for you will be the most perfect life ever. (Jeremiah 29:11)

In the cocoon, the body of the caterpillar completely liquifies and totally loses its identity. All that the caterpillar was, and all that the butterfly will be, are contained in the cocoon, but one form must relinquish itself that the other might emerge.

If you don’t want to deal with your shortcomings or the sin in your life, then you will remain in darkness, and you will not receive the abundant life the Lord has for you. Relinquish control to the Lord so you can emerge as the beautiful butterfly He wants you to be. Satan will always fight you the most in the darkness. Demonic forces are at their highest in the darkness. You can’t see where you are going when you are in the dark, and truth cannot be found in darkness.

Becoming what God wants should be the single most important thing you do, but complacency will stop you in your tracks. The enemy will place excuses in your mind to not attend church or prevent you from going into the Secret Place and having a personal relationship with God on a deeper level. If you give in to any of those excuses, you will remain a “caterpillar” for the rest of your life. You will only be able to crawl your way through life - inch by inch. When you are a caterpillar, your vision is limited, and you will be in danger of being walked on, squished, and easily eaten by predators. If that’s not enough to encourage you to seek the Lord, just think about this… as a caterpillar, you will stay around the same people—forever! Your circumstances will always remain the same, and your chances of destruction are very high.

So, what do you want? In Matthew 7:7 KJV, it says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Do you desire the light of Jesus to reside within you? You cannot participate in the sins of this world and expect Jesus to pour His power out upon you. He cannot place His power in an unsubmitted soul. You must stop doing things that are worldly and start doing godly things! You cannot serve two masters. Just like a caterpillar must relinquish its identity to become a butterfly, you must relinquish your identity to become a woman of God. 

God has given you a life made for more. Change is difficult. It hurts because you are giving up control of how you thought your life was going to be. You must get “self” out of the way to give God the freedom to make you and mold you, to transform your mind, will, and emotions to reflect His. 

In the presence of the Lord, everything changes! The change is in our minds, not our bodies. It’s from the inside out, in the heart and mind. In the cocoon, the butterfly struggles as its wings grow. The more they grow, the more they struggle. This causes strength, and they can finally break through because of that strength. There is no getting around it… you must experience the ‘struggle’ personally, so you receive strength.

The Secret Place is one of the most important places for a Christian. It’s a place to go to seek the Lord privately, where you are not interrupted and where you are safe. It’s the safest place to be. Inside the Secret Place (cocoon) is where Jesus remakes you into His image. You go in there in one state of being (caterpillar), but then you emerge in a completely different form (butterfly). You have taken on the identity of Jesus in the Secret Place. 

When you are transformed from your Secret Place, you have more compassion for others, you become a servant, you are more forgiving, committed, prayerful, and humble. But the most important thing is - you are more loving to others. It shows in everything you do. Love covers a multitude of sins. This is one of Christ’s greatest traits. It’s what held him to a Cross for the remission of our sins. Love is one of the greatest things in the world. 

The butterfly emerges from the cocoon by the struggle to break free. The struggle pushes all the fluid out of its wings, which makes them beautiful and colorful. If they don’t struggle to get the fluid out, they will never fly and die. The struggle is necessary for strength and endurance. Once their wings dry out, the butterfly can fly. They have now been made ready for more! This would be considered a ‘mature Christian’.

What happens in the Secret Place cannot be rushed. It’s not a ‘one and done’. If you think you can do that, you are mistaken. In the Secret Place, you must surrender wholly to Him. That’s a difficult task. Being able to self-reflect and look at yourself through an impartial lens is daunting. No one wants to point out their flaws. But for you to emerge as a mature Christian, you must! Holy Spirit will talk to you through your Spirit.

Total humility must consume your heart, so you are willing to hear the areas where improvement is necessary. Thankfully, Holy Spirit is a gentleman and would never harm you. I encourage you to be open-minded when you enter your Secret Place to hear what He has to say about you. He will always start by telling you how much He loves you. 

The butterfly has finally broken free from the cocoon. The light immediately dispels the darkness it’s been in. There is no fear in the light, for joy has come in the morning. 

The butterfly has become a mature, sanctified Christian. The faster butterflies flap their wings, the higher they go… the more we praise God, the higher we go with Him. This shows a willingness to take quantum leaps to what God is calling you to become next. You could be a worship leader, musician, missionary, Sunday School Teacher, Deacon, Pastor or the church janitor. Every job the Lord gives you is important!

The sky is the limit! A butterfly can go anywhere it wishes. As you are obedient to God, He broadens your territory. There is a whole new life ahead of you. Did you know that Monarch butterflies from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada migrate together from the upper states, and then they migrate down to Mexico? They do this every single year without fail. 

As they fly down South, they will stop for nourishment, eating from flower to flower. But what is so neat is, as they are eating, they are also laying more eggs during the entire journey. In ministry, this represents sharing the good news everywhere you go… and that good news is the gospel of Jesus Christ. If they only ate from the flowers and didn’t lay their eggs, they would be leaving a path of destruction. They leave things better because of the life they are leaving behind. You need to remember your life is not about you… it’s about spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and saving souls!

There is a danger of breaking out of your Secret Place (cocoon) too soon to begin ministry. If you do, you will have weak wings and will grow weary, become discouraged, and that will bring destruction to you. Ministry is not for the faint of heart. 

The struggle of losing your identity and taking on Christ’s identity is what makes you strong, and when you are strong in character, then God will give you the ministry He wants you to have! Do the time God requires. You were made to live a holy, sanctified and righteous life so you can soar to new heights!

So, are you a caterpillar or a butterfly? We are all at different stages in our spiritual journey. But no matter where we are, there is always more to strive for. Every butterfly is marked with their own beauty. That beauty comes from the process they went through in their cocoon. People are drawn to them because they symbolize life, resurrection, and rebirth; change, hope, and most of all, freedom! 

  Did you know that butterflies cannot ‘look’ backwards, and they cannot ‘fly’ backwards – they can only move forward! That’s such a great representation of what you should do with your own life… never look back at your past mistakes. Only move forward with your life into what God has for you.

I encourage you to embrace the process. Louie Giglio once said, “Who you become during the process is just as important as the destination.” The process prepares you for the future God has chosen for you, and the process never ends. You will go from ‘glory to glory’. If you are a Christian, there is always another level to reach for. It’s up to you how far you want to go. With God, anything is possible! 

Author Susan Bolinger

“I love to minister to women who have been broken. That in essence is ‘all of us’. We all have experienced hurt on some level, but when you stay in that hurt, you can fall into a victim mindset. You end up creating a breeding ground for hate, anger and bitterness to take root in your heart, which leads you down a path that can be difficult to overcome.

I desire to equip women to fight back against the enemy of our souls and place weapons of warfare in their arsenal of defense. I want to pull women out of their painful pasts where failure and defeat exists, to grab them by the hand, walk along beside them into the beautiful future the Lord has planned for their lives and remind them how much our Lord loves them. “Bloom – A Process to Achieve Complete Forgiveness” will take you on a journey of your heart so you can overcome and truly become FREE!

As you walk into the purpose for which God created you to do, you can check out my Daily Devotionals on my Facebook Page for ongoing encouragement and insight into the Word of God. Blessings to you!”About Bloom & How to Order:BLOOM - A Process to Achieve Complete Forgiveness Introduction Click this link to order the book: Bloom – A Process to Achieve Complete Forgiveness

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