We all need to change
Never fake your faith, but live it genuinely. The Lord can do more with an honest sinner than a lying saint.
What you cover up remains, but what you reveal is made new. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). The key to changing is the willingness to admit you need to.
Get over yourself, we all need to change.
Are you willing to change?
Do you want to change? The Lord can change you, but will you let Him? Victory is not found in your strength, but His. It is easy to spot a man without Christ, as he can only go to the limit of himself.
The secret to change is willingness. The first step to change is surrender. The power to change is Christ in you. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
He can change you if you let Him. Obedience does not draw you nearer to Him, but drawing near to Him will be the cause of your obedience.
You stand little chance to change yourself when your consultant is the same guy as the one you are trying to change. Either let the Holy Spirit change you, or admit you really don’t want to change at all.
Stop praying for the Lord to change you, and just let Him.
He can change you:
Your life does not change when you call Him Lord, but when He is your Lord.
Spiritual change requires spiritual work. It is the Holy Spirit alone qualified to do this work. Your only job is to let Him have His way in you.
You want what you want. You get what you go after. You are filled by all that you consume. The problem is not in overcoming what you want, but in changing all that you desire. Yet you cannot change you, but Christ in you changes everything.
Change your outward actions, and be changed for a moment. Change your heart, and be changed forever. Man looks at what he can do different. The Lord looks at how He can make you different.
The Word transforms us:
It is not the truth you know that matters, but the truth you live. Even demons know the truth, set your bar higher than that.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Word completes you, if you will let it.
Theology is not meant to save you, but to change you. Jesus saves, the Word transforms. “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow…” (Hebrews 4:12).
Circumstances change us:
We imagine our life with Christ, that He would change the circumstances of our life. We pray that if the Lord would change our circumstances that we would change. But the Lord places us in our circumstances that they would change us.
Stop asking the Lord to change your circumstances and ask Him to change you. “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23).
The Lord shapes the higher life in a saint with the harder instruments. “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make” (Jeremiah 18:4).
There are two forces that create the nature of Christ in you: an outward breaking away, and an inward giving away. The outward is the hammer and chisel of external circumstances. The inward is the willing submission of your life to Jesus. The less submission, the harder the hammer must strike you. “…Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1).
Your change is your message:
Your greatest message to others that Christ changes lives is living a life that proves it. There is nobody that the Lord Jesus cannot change, but the man who refuses.
Change begins where excuses end. Don’t just make resolutions, but live resolutions. Don’t just say you will try, but that you will let him. Letting Him do a work in you is the easiest thing ever for you to do. The hard part is letting Him start. But once He does, you will never want Him to stop!
We can only convince people of Christ’s power to change if we are changed. If you want to teach about living a life of faith, then you need live it, or you need to not become a teacher.
Just let the Lord have His way with you.
Blessings,
Paul
What a great teaching. Either is a good teacher or a false teacher. Choice is yourselves.