Sea Changed a Companion Guide: Living a Transformed Life

By Kate Nicholas

A study guide exploring the theme of transformation in a practical way that enables readers to more closely reflect the nature of God.

The bestselling book Sea Changed looked at how God transformed Kate Nicholas' life. Now in Sea Changed: A Companion Guide Kate takes the lessons she learnt from her personal journey and encourages us all to embark on the adventure of faith by living a transformed life.

Transformation is foundational to our faith as followers of Christ. Indeed the very meaning and purpose of our lives is to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus, who himself is the image of God in human form. As we read the Bible and integrate it into our lives, we are allowing the Holy Spirit to work a transformation in our lives. But God can also use the circumstances of our lives to help work this process of transformation. Kate's own dramatic testimony demonstrates how both these aspects have been fundamental in her own journey, and she weaves together both biblical and practical experience in this companion guide to help encourage us all to reflect more closely God's nature.

Using a mix of biblical teaching, personal testimony and questions for reflection, Kate helps us to understand what God wants to do in our lives and how we can apply the lessons learnt to grow more like him. The points for reflection in each session are divided into biblical study and personal application sections, making this an ideal resource to study either personally or in a discipleship or small group setting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authentic Media
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781780789972

Kate Nicholas

Kate Nicholas has over twenty years' experience as a national journalist, editor and commentator and now heads up global communications for Christian humanitarian agency World Vision. She lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband and two daughters and is a lay preacher.

Book preview

Author

INTRODUCTION

‘I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the L

ord

.’

Ps. 118:17 (

kjv

)

This book that you have picked up is about a mystery and a journey. It is about the fact that the world is a far more mysterious place than we can ever imagine, and that behind the day-to-day rhythm of our life lies profound meaning just waiting to be uncovered. It is about the recognition that our lives are a journey of transformation from a state of flawed humanity into the glorious beings that God always intended us to be; a journey that may not always be easy but which leads to true life in all its fullness.

The idea for this companion guide, Living a Transformed Life, grew out of a TV interview with the UK’s largest Christian television channel TBN UK about my best-selling book, Sea Changed, an account of my own unconventional journey of faith and experience of God’s transformation.

I wrote Sea Changed initially as a legacy for my children, when I was diagnosed with advanced cancer. I wanted them to know how much God had loved me, shaped me and stood by me, even as I faced potentially leaving them.

Photographs are wonderful for capturing moments in time and, viewed together, show how you have changed outwardly over the years, but they say nothing about the inward transformation that takes place over a lifetime; the ways in which you have gradually come to understand the underlying rhythm of God’s world and your growing relationship with its creator. For this you need words.

I was first diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in August 2014 and was told that while the cancer was inoperable, it was treatable; but only a month later I was told that the cancer was in fact stage IV and had spread to the pericardial sac around my heart. At this stage I was told that my prognosis was not good and that, even if the chemotherapy could shrink down the tumours, a decision would have to be made as to whether it was worth putting my body through surgery, based on how much time I had left.

As a wife and a mother this was a very hard thing to hear, and it was the knowledge that I may not be long for the world that spurred me to write. Words have always been a part of my life – but it took a cancer diagnosis to transform me into an author.

I wrote most of Sea Changed in hospital beds, as chemicals coursed their way through my veins killing off the rogue cells that threatened my life. I still can’t comprehend how I had the energy to write, but the words just seemed to pour out of me as if fuelled by the Spirit.

Then, against all odds, I miraculously survived and Sea Changed became about something bigger. It became about reassuring people that the surest path to faith isn’t necessarily a straight line, and that God can be found working in the most unexpected of places and times of our lives – even in a cancer diagnosis.

During my darkest hour, God gave me a passage from Psalm 118:17:

‘I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the L

ord

’ (

kjv

), and I knew that if God did heal me, my life must change; that I must dedicate the life restored to me to sharing the gospel – that I must ‘declare the works of the L

ord

’.

And sure enough, as soon as Sea Changed hit the bookshelves, my life began to change. I soon found myself travelling all over the country talking to churches, cancer groups and the media about my faith journey and healing, and eventually I was called out to leave my much-loved job at World Vision International, where I headed up global communications. Within eighteen months of my recovery from cancer, my life had been completely transformed.

Then, in June 2017, I was interviewed by Leon Schoeman on TBN UK’s flagship interview show TBN Meets. As our interview came to a close he turned to me and said, ‘I think that God is doing something amazing through you and I think we need to help you with your ministry. How would you like a TV show?’

I was amazed. This was something that I could never have predicted or planned but, in many ways, all my experience to date – my work as a secular journalist and TV commentator, my writing and even the experience of cancer – had been preparing me for this opportunity to ‘declare the works of the Lord’. I realized I had been given an amazing chance to take the lessons I had learnt and help others who might be struggling with some of the challenges and changes in their lives – and may be trying to understand where God is at work in the face of adversity. And the seed was sown for a television series called Living a Transformed Life and this book.

How to Use This Book

This book is designed as a resource for reflection and prayer. Through it, you are invited to explore the concept that our lives are all about God’s transformation; to look at how God uses the circumstances of our lives to transform us, and what the fruits of this transformation look like – what it means to live a transformed life.

In each chapter we will explore a key theme by examining Scripture and the lives of some key biblical characters, and you will be invited to reflect on some questions to enable you to go a little deeper into what God tells us about his plan for our transformation.

I will also share a little about the key lessons I have learnt from my own journey of transformation as captured in Sea Changed, and you will be invited to reflect on how what we learn from Scripture and life examples can be applied to your own life, helping you along on your journey.

And, finally, you will be invited to come before God and to pray; to open yourself up to God and living a transformed life.

CHAPTER 1

OUR GOD OF TRANSFORMATION

Over two thousand years ago, God came to earth, transforming his very being into the form and substance of his own creation and, as Jesus Christ walked among us, he gave us a glimpse of God’s original design for mankind. With his very being, Christ gave us a template for how we should live our lives and be with one another.

Christ told fallen humanity that the first and highest purpose of our being was to love God and that we should do so ‘with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matt. 22:37); a command which, if followed, engages and transforms every aspect of our humanity. To love God is to be transformed.

Indeed, in following Christ, it is impossible to escape the fact that the whole idea of transformation is foundational to our faith and the concept of redemption. In the Bible, God tells us that we are at this moment being transformed into the very image of Jesus; that as we die to sin with Christ, our entire nature is being transformed.

For example, in 2 Corinthians 3:18 we are told that, ‘We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ Through his great sacrifice, Jesus has freed us from sin, enabling us to stand before the Lord covered only in the righteousness