SNOW: THE IMAGE OF TRANSFORMATION

Snow is defined in the dictionary as the atmospheric water vapour frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer. The snow that comes down from the heavens has a spiritual significance.

Reference: Job 38:22 New Living Translation (NLT) "Have you visited the storehouses of the snow...?"

Let us consider the snow. According to our opening verse, snow has storehouses in the heavens. It does not have one storehouse but storehouses. God made snow in a way that makes it possible for it to transform into its state through a water cycle. When water evaporates into the sky, the clouds which hold the water jars of the heavens collect the evaporated water (see Job 38:37). So in the clouds, we have a heavily stored amount of water floating above us. As the water jars of heaven get colder, something significant happens: The stored water crystallizes into ice, and the molecules it is made of get farther apart, thereby turning into snow at times.

This cycle of transformation takes place in the sky, and once, God asked Job saying, "From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? (Job 38:29-30). All of these questions give us an idea of transformation process water undergoes in the heavens. With a water cycle like this in view, sometimes we pray that God would mould us into the person we are designed to be but we forget that it involves a process which many are in a hurry to experience. There is always a process of transformation. Beloved, in the sky, transformation happens when the waters become hard as stone, but there is a process that changed the state of water into becoming a snow. First, the rain waters evaporated from the earth and it was filtered by the sun from impurity in the process of vapourisation. Its like raw ore being refined into gold.

King David once asked God in Psalms 51:7 (ESV), Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. In other words, the Psalmist was asking God for extreme transformation. The phrase "whiter than snow" denotes the desire for sanctification, holiness and purity. It is not a common desire. Today, as Christians, we have the greatest sanctifying and purifying power. We participate in the divine life of God and this sanctifying power of God in us is supernatural grace infused by God through the person of the Holy Spirit. It is a branch of God's grace that He grants you through His Spirit to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, to consecrate and separate you from stains, thereby enabling you to perfect and function in the state of holiness, just like the sparkling nature of snow.

Assuming you're a Christian but you're not living the right way because you always entertain and move with the wrong company who gets involved with some harmful habits, such as watching the wrong movies, and then you pray that the Holy Spirit would plant in you the desire and hunger for righteousness, so you can serve God in spirit and in truth. First of all, the Holy Spirit will enable you and grant you the courage to stay away from wrong company and go for the right circle. Beloved, that's a process of consecration that gives birth to sanctification. Sanctification is a form of transformation where you are changed from one state to another, just like the rain waters from the earth evaporate into the sky and change its state in the cloud. As long as the rain waters remain in the earth, transformation won't take place.

Continuous transformation is God's will for us. Though our state of holiness before God is known as positional sanctification (1 Corinthians 6:11 NIV), we still have to renew our minds and be steadily sanctified by the Word in our walk with God. The Word of God is a sanctifying agent (John 17:17). It helps us to experience progressive transformation by sanctification. Living by the truth of the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are bound to enjoy a sanctified life. This is exactly what 2nd Thessalonians 2:13 is saying, "But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth" (NASB). Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Job 37:6; Isaiah 55:10-11; Daniel 7:9; Revelation 1:14; Romans 12:2.

Guided Prayer: Thank you Father for the active presence of your Spirit in my life. As I delight in your truth within the borders of my inward being, you teach me your wisdom and inscribe the wordings on the tablet of my heart. You uphold the process of my transformation and you fix all the boundaries of my righteousness in Christ. I'm regularly cleansed and shaped by the Word and I always turn out to be purer and whiter than snow. The beauty of the sanctifying work of the Spirit in my life is sapphire, typically forming the character of Christ in me. I'm forever grateful for the eternal difference the Holy Spirit makes in me and through me in Jesus' Name, Amen!