This week I have been at the Christian Conference New Word Alive in North Wales. It has been an awesome, well-needed week of refreshing teaching amongst a crazy season in my life.
One of the seminar tracks I went too each day was by Tm Chester, the Director of the Porterbrook Institute and a leader in The Crowded House church in Sheffield.
The seminars were titled 'You can change' and the theme was broken down into 10 points exploring the theme further.
If we look at our lives I'm sure we can all find something in it that we would like to change; and especially as Christians I'm sure there are various sins we want to change and maybe even attempt to change. We don't have to look far into ourselves and into the world before we realise that things do not always work in harmony, there are problems in the order of things and imperfections that clearly confront us all in the face. The world, and us included are not as they were meant to be. We were created in God's image to reflect God's glory. But when we rejected God, that image was broken and we were then less of the image we should be. Enter Jesus- the true image of God who perfectly reflects God's glory. So instead of living in the 1st seed: Adam- a life only leading to condemnation for eternity, God wants us to come back into alignment with Him, enjoy him fully and become more like Jesus the 2nd seed . He is calling us to be 'glory-reflectors'. God recreates Christians in his image, we are given new life and receive the blueprint of our heavenly Father. So, hoe can we fully be 'glory-reflectors' like Christ when we so clearly have a lot of changes to make because of our sinfulness. Tim Chester put it like this: Seeing God's glory in Jesus by faith is what leads to reflecting God's glory like Jesus.
So, I don't know about you but I know that pretty much all the time I can see the sinful behaviour in my life and think hummm that really needs to change; how can I change that to be more godly or to be more like Jesus. But no, actually I completely forget that even if I attempt to change my behaviour that we have no lasting effect because the real problem is that this behaviour stems from a deeper more powerful source; the heart. Mike Reeves describes the heart as not just a physical heart but that it is associated with emotions and feelings and desires which direct our paths. So if the core problem is my heart then to try and change that is a whole nother level, and in fact by the strongest of will-powers I will never be able to change it myself- to think that I can change this, shows no faith in what Jesus did at the cross, it shows no faith in God's saving act of love and grace that meant His son Jesus Christ was slaughtered on a cross for the sinful hearts of the world, including mine, so that we can come back into relationship with God himself through Jesus and reflect God's glory again and fulfil the purpose of our creation and being.
Tim Chester then took a look at the question 'Why would you like to change?'. There are so many reasons why we would like to change but he identified the 3 common reasons: to prove ourselves to God (so he will bless us or save us); to prove ourselves to other people (so people like us or to hide our true selves); and to prove ourselves to ourselves (so we feel good about ourselves). And I think if we really think about all the things we hope would change in our lives we can pretty much categorise them under one of these reasons. I know for me I hide my real self sometimes from people because I worry what they might think of me, and actually this mask keeping can be a real strain. I also try to put distance between myself and my last sin to make me feel better and not feel down. So none of these reasons really work because they all put 'me' at the centre of the change project which we know as being wrong because we know now we can't make those changes. The great thing to remember regarding these reasons is that God proves us or justifies us through Jesus so we don't need to prove ourselves. God gives us a new identity and this new identity is the motive and basis for change:
New Identity:
-Child of the Father- so don't live like a slave when you are a son/daughter of the King of Heaven
-Bride of the Son- Jesus is already our bride-groom, he has already made his covenant promises with us and he will never leave us!
-Home of the living Spirit- we have been washed clean and cleansed so there is no point trampling mud around a clean house, sin is mud in the house of the Holy Spirit.
Tim Chester said: The reason Christians should want to change is to enjoy the freedom from sin and delight in God that God gives us through Jesus.
So how are we going to change? We could live a life that pleases God but again this is our behaviour and this won't make the change. As it says in Colossians 2:20, living by rules doesn't work either in making the change; they have no power to change our hearts. Legalism has the appeal of importance and wisdom- but it makes holiness a human achievement. Put simply but so profoundly, change is God's work. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says this 'May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through'. The liberating work of the Father, The Son and The Spirit. The Father is intimately involved in our lives so that our circumstances train us in godliness and Christ-like character. The Son, Jesus Christ, has set us free from both the penalty and the power of sin so we now live under grace and are free to delight in God. The Spirit gives us a new attitude to sin and new power to change. When God sanctifies us it's almost as though we now have DNA of holiness written into our genes. I was really challenged at this as I realised I need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit that is leading me to change.
There are of course plenty of times when we struggle in life and so often we blame our circumstances for causing or triggering our sin. But no our circumstances do not cause us to sin, the root cause is always our heart and it's sinful desires. We sin because we believe lies about God instead of believing God's word and also because we don't desire God above anything but worship idols instead. Therefore, every time we don't trust God or his word then we are believing something else= a lie. But as Christians we need to remember we have freedom and life which is found by trusting and delighting in the truth about God.
We need to learn to preach the truth about God to our hearts. We need to remember each truth and tell ourselves them in each situation daily.
Tim Chester then shared four life-changing truths from the Bible we can use in each situation:
1. God is great- so we don't have to be in control
2. God is glorious- so we don't have to fear others or rejection by others, i.e.fear of man
3. God is good- so we don't have to look elsewhere for true joy/ fulfillment
4. God is gracious- so we don't have to prove ourselves- He has done all in Christ, nothing changes our standing with God, nothing, nothing nothing!
If we tell ourselves these truths daily especially in the difficult situations and turn to these rather then the sinful desires of our heart to sin, then we recognise by faith that God is better and more satisfy. The gospel of Christ has the melting power over our sinful hardened hearts so lets tell our hearts the truths and the true gospel of our God daily! When we see the glory of God in Jesus' we won't be able to help but desire him, and strive to know him more!
The last point of encouragement is to say yes to whatever strengthens our God desires- we need to plant in beautiful godly characteristics and godly desires. In other words sow to the Spirit which involves:
-the truth of God
-the power of God (we need his power to help us in this journey of change)
-the people of God
-the worship of God (says God is better then my sinfulness, we are calling our hearts back to him.)
-the service of God (changes us from self, towards others)
The journey of holiness is a life long developing of the heart. And no it's not easy but we press on because faith in the gospel tells us the view from the top of the mountain is glorious, the fullness of which is to come! Praise the Lord!
