Vander's Thoughts

Vander's Thoughts

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Change

I was speaking to a good friend today and I realized something that seemed so simple yet hit me as profound wisdom. I hope you can relate.

We were talking about our unwillingness to change and how when it comes to our idiosyncrasies many people will say, “That’s just they way I am.” And I get it, I’m as off center as the next guy when it comes to my routines and quirks. I also understand that we can resist change because we have grown use to ourselves, but from a spiritual standpoint, change is not an option.

God wants us all to change. Christ died so that you and I would change. To say, “That’s just the way I am” is to reject God’s transformation within each and every one of us. We may not like to do something or face personal change, but that was the old person, not the new man created to be like Christ. The true expression is to say, “That’s who I was”.

But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. – Ephesians 4:20-24

We can’t accept who we are becoming until we reject who we were.