Last week we spoke on How to Set Godly Goals but how do we begin with making lasting changes?
There a few things that are useful to begin with. It begins with us. What I mean is that it begins in our heart and the choices we make. Obviously, life is about God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But we have all been given free will and so we need to start by making a choice:
A choice in what we do; our behaviours, habits even our ways of thinking.
A choice in where our focus lies; ourselves or on God.
A choice is the beginning point of making any changes.
The good thing is, YOU get to choose.
The bible doesn’t use the actual word free will, but there are many scriptures that refer to it.
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh ; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
John 7:17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
As you can see the second verse here says “chooses.” We all need to have a look at ourselves and see how we are living and which way we are walking and then make decisions accordingly.
Are we walking by our flesh or by the Holy Spirit?
Galatians 5:16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
How do we do this? We start with that choice again. We need to take a look at ourselves and see if we are needing to make any changes. We can start by pruning!
John 15 talks about ‘The vine and the branches.’ we are to cut away the branches that bear no fruit (v2). This means we are to get rid of anything in our lives that is hindering us from being fully free in Christ.
We need to have a good look at our actions, behaviours, even our thoughts and ask God to help us to remove anything there that is not of Him.
This isn’t a one time thing, we will consistently need to check ourselves, because we are living on a fallen earth and we aren’t perfect, no one is, apart from Jesus. But by doing this we can then start to become more like Jesus and less of us.
Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
Romans 12.2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
All changes start with the mind. We need to choose, in our mind, make decisions in our mind and we can be transformed by renewing our minds. It is then, we can start to see lasting changes. Check out 5 Steps of Transformation. We can’t begin to help and make changes in the world around us until we start making changes in us.
What do you choose?
(Feel free to use the comments for discussion.)
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