Unveiled

Spiritual Essential: Transformation

Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

When you begin a fitness journey, you’re climbing a mountain few dare to climb. Along the way, you encounter habits, environments, and limiting beliefs that must be reshaped if you want to go far. You can make real progress through discipline and grit, but the biggest barrier often isn’t your effort, it’s your focus. What are you beholding? What are you fixing your eyes on?

It’s been said, “Where focus goes, energy flows.” Whatever holds our attention eventually shapes us. In fitness, this can be seen in something as small as the bathroom scale. For many, that number becomes an object of obsession or fear. We can let it define our success or expose our failure. But when we learn to see that number differently, it becomes a tool to guide wiser action each day.

Holding the right focus and perspective can be life-changing. Yet even when we master our nutrition, training, and recovery, we eventually discover that physical transformation alone doesn’t change the person we see in the mirror. The deeper question remains: What or Who are we truly beholding?

For Moses it meant beholding God. Moses was so closely walking with God that one day when he descended Mount Sinai after meeting with the Lord, his face shone so brightly that the Israelites couldn’t bear to look at him. He had to cover his face with a veil. But what Moses carried was temporary. That glory would eventually fade. The law he delivered revealed God’s holiness, but it could not permanently transform hearts. As Paul writes, that same veil still remains for those who only look to the law.

But now, in Christ, that veil is removed. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus revealed the full glory of God, and through the Holy Spirit, we can now behold that glory without fear. The Spirit removes the veil, helping us to see Jesus clearly. And as we behold Him, we are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Where the law eventually leads to death, the Spirit brings freedom. The Spirit doesn’t just allow us to see Christ’s glory, but He reveals that glory in us. In other words, what Moses experienced externally, we now experience internally.

Transformation doesn’t come by trying harder but through beholding Jesus more clearly. The Holy Spirit plays the central role in this process. He continually lifts the veil, revealing who Jesus truly is and realigning our focus when it drifts back to ourselves. Just as a scale gives us a snapshot of where we stand physically, beholding Christ shows us where we stand spiritually. But unlike the scale, which can fuel comparison or shame, Jesus invites us to look upon Him with confidence and hope.

The Spirit redirects our gaze from self-improvement to Christ-likeness. He teaches us to look less at ourselves and more at Him. We ultimately will become what we behold.

A whole generation could be healed by learning to look at themselves less and at Jesus more. When we behold Him, we see the One who trusted the Father completely, who stood for truth despite rejection, who lived with perfect courage, compassion, and obedience. The Spirit reveals Jesus not just to inspire us, but to shape us into His likeness. The heart of transformation is that by the Spirit’s power, we behold the glory of Christ until His image is formed in us and we are fully unveiled.

Questions for Reflection:

What has God unveiled in your life?

What would you say you behold?