Butterflies Are Free

If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed! John 8:36
The annual Women’s Retreat hosted by Voice of Joy Ministries was held in September and it was one of my favorites. The theme was Butterflies. We looked at the Christian life as compared to the stages of the life of a Butterfly.

Egg:
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever. I Peter 1:23
We are born again by the Word of God, and are like the tiny egg planted on a leaf. They say if you look closely you can see inside the egg to what is growing there. A butterfly? Not yet – what you can see is a tiny worm like thing. When we are first born again, we don’t look like Jesus Christ in whose image we are destined to become. But the process has begun!

Caterpillar:
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Matt. 4:4
When the egg hatches, a little caterpillar emerges. A very hungry little caterpillar! He eats and eats and eats until he grows to be a big caterpillar. If we are smart, the next stage in our Christian life drives us to hunger for the Word of God. I remember when I first got a revelation that the Word of God was a living thing. I devoured it – read it through, the whole thing – in three days. Later I went back and had meals of the Word on a more regular basis. The Word of God causes us to grow, causes our minds to be transformed.

Chrysalis:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Phil. 2:12,13
When the caterpillar is very fat, it forms a cocoon around itself and you can’t see the caterpillar any more. What is happening to it is done in secret. It is changing forms. It is that way with us. When the Word of God has transformed our minds, we are ready to allow the Lord to change us on the inside. He, through His Living Word and His Holy Spirit, works to bring us to increasingly higher levels of likeness to Himself…until we don’t look like our old self but like Him.

Butterfly:
…as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4
When the butterfly emerges, its wings are weak and floppy. Then it begins pumping blood into those wings until they are strong and able to fly. So it is with us. The Blood of Jesus strengthens us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness – continually. One of the first things a butterfly does is look for a mate so it can reproduce. And we too, when we are born again and transformed into His image, desire to share the good news about the new life available to every person because of God’s great mercy and love.

Be free!!!