Well, it's one of the most fundamental dynamics of our lives. We are always becoming like what we most adore. And yet when we look at ourselves, what we adore so often fluctuates in intensity all throughout the day. And yet in Christ, we are progressing toward a maturity in Him as we worship Him.

John Piper explains how all of this dynamic works together from 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, in a recent sermon. Here's what he said. This is so variable, I'm tempted to say it's just incalculably variable, meaning the morning and the mid-morning and the noon and the afternoon and the night are all different.

Your heart for God is different at 10 and noon and 4 and 8. It's different. Your emotions are just like this. Nobody lives like this. Nobody. And from week to week and month to month and year to year, and saints are allowed to move into seasons of great darkness, nights of the soul.

Here's what that verse says, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, "We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." Now notice, beholding the glory of the Lord is a present tense, ongoing action, not a one time action, ongoing, and so is being transformed.

Ongoing, not one time. So let me read it again with that in mind. We all with unveiled face, you have to read the context to see why he says that. There was a veil lying over Israel and a veil is being lifted for us now to behold the Lord.

The veil is lifted, that's like God taking away the blinders. The veil is lifted and we are beholding daily, weekly, Sunday by Sunday in preaching, day by day in reading our Bibles, we are beholding the glory of the Lord and are thus being transformed from one degree of glory to the other.

You become most like what you admire most. That's what this is saying. You become most like, progressively, what you admire most. If you admire the glory of God most and all His ways, you will become more and more conformed to that. That's what it says. Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Degree, degree. Which is so encouraging because none of us has arrived. So there's the cross, once for all, to pay for my truth suppressing God exchanging unrighteousness. There's new birth, once for all, you don't get born again. The heart of stone is taken out, the blindness is removed, the spirit is put within, God is restored as my treasure and then the rest of my life beholding the glory of the Lord, I am being changed from one degree of glory to the next.

So week by week in preaching, day by day in reading your Bibles, conferences like this, I'm praying that right now this is happening, we are being changed from one degree of glory to another. This is one of the most important dynamics of the Christian life and this clip comes from a message given last summer in a series titled "Living in the Light with Money, Sex, and Power." It's a three-part series, three messages and one Q&A, all available at DesiringGod.org.

And if you want more from Piper on how 2 Corinthians 3:18 works, be sure to check out his new book, A Peculiar Glory, how the Christian scriptures reveal their complete truthfulness. He talks about that passage several times in that book. You can download the entire book free of charge at DesiringGod.org/books.

It's made free because we have incredibly generous financial donors and publishers who make it possible for us to give our books away free of charge online. I am your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for making the Ask Pastor John podcast a part of your daily routine and we'll see you tomorrow.