God wants to change you
Here's one of the most-ignored truths in the Bible: God wants to change you.
When you pray and ask God to change your circumstances, what happens?
Your disability doesn't go away. A spouse doesn't appear out of the blue. Your job continues to be frustrating. A relationship with a relative doesn't get better. Your money problems keep you awake at night.
Like you, I have often reached the point of desperation in my prayers, and even though my circumstances did not change, I somehow managed to make it through situations so painful I thought they would be the end of me.
As preacher Charles Stanley frequently said, God uses adversity to grow us up. That growing up—which for Christians is molding us into the character of Jesus Christ—is called sanctification.
Let's look at why God wants to change you more than he wants to change your circumstances.
The painful price of maturity
Life's most valuable lessons don't come when we're sitting in our La-Z-Boy enjoying a cold beverage, some munchies, and mindless entertainment on television. They come after an agonizing battle with trouble.
Pain is an instant attention-getter.
The kind of pain needed to make us change varies from one person to another, but all human problems have one thing in common. They prove, once again, that God is God and we're not.
In my life, that lesson has been repeated many times. How about you? We assume we've learned it, only to backslide and require another session in God's classroom.
No, God doesn't discipline his children because he's a sadist. He does it because he loves us and wants us to depend on him, not ourselves. He wants to reinforce the message that he is our Father, and a trustworthy Father at that.
God wants us to rely not on our own limited brainpower and experience, but on the loving guidance of the Holy Spirit, as revealed in Scripture. He has to remind us that when we stray outside his commands, bad things happen.
One of the difficulties is telling the difference between bad consequences brought on by disobedience, and trouble that is simply a normal part of life. Frequently bad things—like accidents—do happen to good people.
The key is this: No matter what happens to you, your response is an opportunity to grow more in Christlikeness or not.
Sanctification requires your cooperation
God's foremost desire for you is salvation, the cleansing and forgiveness of your sins accomplished by Jesus's sacrificial death on the cross. But salvation is voluntary, when we choose to believe in Christ as Savior. God does not save anyone against their will.
God's secondary desire for you is sanctification. God wants to change you, making you more like Jesus every day. It's a lifelong, gradual process that ends only when you die and enter heaven.
What character qualities does God want you to have? They're found in Galatians 5:22-23:
- Love,
- Joy,
- Peace,
- Patience,
- Kindness,
- Goodness,
- Faithfulness,
- Gentleness,
- Self-control.
Paul calls these traits the fruit of the Spirit, not fruit of the Christian, because the Holy Spirit develops them in you. You can't produce them yourself. You can only cooperate with the Holy Spirit's work.
When you meet a Christian who is lacking in any of these nine qualities, it's because they're going their own way in that area. They're not yielding to God.
Why God wants to change you
There's an old saying: "God accepts you just the way you are but loves you too much to leave you that way." It's not in the Bible but it's true.
When two people get married, one often takes it upon himself (or herself) to change the other, "correcting" habits they don't like. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
It's different when God wants to change you. Since he created you, he has the right to change you. He also knows what's best for you. Another person may not. It's true too that every human being has a sinful nature. Doing wrong comes naturally for us. God's paternal guidance and control are absolutely necessary for us to become like Jesus.
One glance at that list and you might think, "Whoa! Never gonna happen. On my best day I couldn't come up with even half of those." And you'd be right. Nobody could—on their own. The Christian life was never meant to be a solo act. We can live it well only to the extent we let Christ live it through us.
But don't think that when God changes you, he's going to erase your own personality and replace it with that of Jesus. No, God gave you a specific personality and made every human being unique. He doesn't want a race of clones but rather a race of people who live up to their full potential, as Jesus did.
When you and I cooperate with our sanctification, we don't become puppets. Instead, the Holy Spirit eliminates the worst in us and replaces it with the best.
How to speed up the process
We often stubbornly cling to favorite sins, like the works of the flesh mentioned in Galatians 5:19-21:
- Sexual immorality,
- Impurity,
- Sensuality,
- Idolatry,
- Sorcery,
- Enmity,
- Strife,
- Jealousy,
- Fits of anger,
- Rivalries,
- Dissensions,
- Divisions,
- Envy,
- Drunkenness,
- Orgies.
Obviously these 15 sins are not exact opposites of the nine fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, but these traits do manifest from a lack of fruit of the Spirit. All sins do.
How can you and I speed this process of sanctification, this God-driven change, along?
First, we need to accept that God's way is the best way. It's wiser than the world's way or our own way.
Second, we learn God's way by familiarizing ourself the Bible. God's desires for us are not a secret. The Ten Commandments are the basic outline and the commands of Jesus to love God and our neighbor show us what to do.
Third, after we accept God's authority and know what is expected of us, we choose how to respond in every given situation. We grow in Christlikeness every time we respond as Jesus would.
Finally, we learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others. Spiritual maturity takes a lifetime. When we fall, we get back up and keep trying.
God wants to change you, and when you work with him, the fruit of the Spirit will bring deep, lasting contentment and a sense of wholeness into your life.
