The world is full of self-help books and blogs. You can find tons of information on weight loss, self-esteem, anxiety and depression, and many other topics to try and better yourself. These self-help lessons rarely add up to real life renovation. So what is the answer? Let’s take a closer look at the believer’s ultimate authority, the Bible, to see 4 Shocking Truths about real life change.
- God never says, “Be yourself” or “Follow your heart.”
Being yourself or following your heart is the worst advice, yet we hear it almost everyday! Why is this such bad advice? “Being yourself and following your own sinful heart” gets us into trouble because we are sinful by nature. Our heart will naturally choose the wrong things (sin) without Christ.
We are sinners. Sin is in our nature from the beginning of our lives. Take a look at Ephesians 2:3. Paul says we are by nature children of wrath. Whose wrath? God’s wrath. Why?
God is eternally good. He is perfectly holy. Anything contrary to God’s character is contrary to God Himself. Sin contradicts everything God is, and He hates it.
We see sin enter the world in Genesis 3:6 when Adam and Eve ate from the tree God commanded them to not eat from. As a result, sin became Adam’s (human kind’s) nature. From this point on, sin would be something Adam would naturally choose. This sin nature would then be passed to all of us. See Romans 7:18, Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 51:5, and Psalm 58:3.
We lack the ability to do anything that pleases God. Sin affects every part of our being, our thinking, our feelings, our motivations, and even our physical bodies. We are far more sinful than we could ever imagine.
The true path to real life renovation begins with realizing how bad off we really are. You have to see the bad before you can realize the good. The good that God doesn’t leave us in our sin. He provides hope! He provides the Way!!
2. Living happily ever after is not God’s goal for your life.
God wants us to live our lives to act as a display of His glory. Take a look at Ephesians 1:3-6.
From the Westminster Larger Catechism: What is the chief and highest end of man? Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully enjoy Him forever.
As Christians, we will never be perfect this side of heaven. In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, it tells us when we are with the Lord, we will be perfected in the twinkling of an eye. What do we do in the mean time? We are daily going through the process of sanctification to make us more like Jesus.
We know that, from earlier, our nature is sinful, and we choose the wrong things. Anytime we obey the Lord, it is because the sovereign Lord gave us the strength to do so. This does not give us an excuse for inactivity in response to God’s commands. We are not to to wallow in the despair of the rubble of our lives. We are to be strong and set to work because God promises to be with us. God promises to complete the good work He started in us. Our labors will not be in vain. In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus promises that the Spirit of God will be with us until the end of the age, and we have no need to fear. In Philippians 1:6, God promises to never abandon His people, and to bring His work to completion.
Why doesn’t God instantly sanctify us when we are first saved? Take a look in 2 Corinthians 4:7 and 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. God’s holiness will be made all the more glorious through our weakness. We want glory for ourselves. We want God to be known through our strengths. We don’t want to have hardships. But the truth is, it is in our weakness, and God’s work in and through us that He is glorified.
3. There is no “self-help” when it comes to sin.
In Ephesians 2:1-10, Paul tells us we are spiritually dead. I am in the healthcare field, and I have never seen a dead person save themselves. At this point, they can’t help themselves. That is how we are before God intervenes in our lives, dead in our sins with no hope and no ability to help ourselves. We venture on through this passage to Ephesians 2:4 and we stumble upon the words “But God.” Our entire spiritual life hinges on these words. But God, full of mercy, full of grace, and full of life to save sinners. Through great love, God sent His Son, Jesus. He lived a perfect life and died a gruesome death in our place. Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead, conquering death and the grave and is seated at God right hand. He then promises us the same. We will be resurrected to Christ’s glory at His return. This is not because of our doing, but because of God’s love for us. We are an undeserving kind with no ability to help ourself out of our pit of darkness, BUT GOD, through His beautiful, love does it for us. The gospel is the key that drives our life renovation.
4. Our hope lies in something bigger than ourselves.
Romans 8:24-25 The Christian life involves patient waiting in hope. We hope not in ourselves, but in Christ whose promises will not fail. Hope is the antidote to the despair we feel from a world broken by sin. As Christians, we look back to the cross and forward to Christ’s return. Our salvation has begun with the Holy Spirit, but it will be complete when Christ returns again. In Christ, we find rest for our souls and encouragement for our daily struggles.
Real life change does not happen in and of ourselves. It is the work of God. We do not boast in this life, but point all things back to the Savior. When we start losing track because our lives are not exactly how we planned, may we turn back to Christ, to our Hope, as we realize all our trials are making us more like Him, and it is all for His glory.