Reformation

To reform one's life means only to open oneself to the divinizing shaping (re-forming) of the Holy Spirit.  "Re-formation" means dying to the sin that has enslaved us all this time and rising to a kind of life we have not yet lived or known.  And if we do not yet know it, we cannot thereby create it for ourselves.  So the Spirit of God working in us must put to death the "old man," with its empty way of life, and give us the "new man," breathed into us by the breath of God.

The term used for "Spirit" in the Hebrew is "ruah," which can mean "breath, spirit, wind, breeze."  In the beginning, the Spirit/ruah of God hovered over the dark abyss, waiting to bring order and light.  In the beginning, God breathed His Spirit/ruah into the lifeless body of Adam and "the man became a living soul."  The darkness within us awaits the Breath of God to restore order and harmony; our dead spirits await the living Spirit to bring us into a new kind of life.

Jesus said, "Behold, I make all things new again."  That's what He was sent to do---to destroy the work of the devil (John 10) and to make new the things that have descended into the dark abyss.  He once and for all descended into hell to bring back those who had no hope, who were, like the Chilean miners, buried in darkness.  But, if we are willing, He will bring us up out of the depths into the light of His glory and grace.  He will re-form us even while we are still helpless to re-form ourselves. 

Someone once told the story of a tightrope walker who used to walk across Niagra Falls.  One day he appeared with a wheelbarrow and asked a man, "Do you believe that I can cross the Falls with this wheelbarrow?"  "Yes," said the man, "I believe you can do that."  "Then get in," said the tightrope walker.

So that's the story.  It's not enough to "believe" that Christ can re-form our lives.  We have to "get in the wheelbarrow" and allow Him to take us where we could not go ourselves.