Mark 1:15, Acts 20:20-21, Hebrews 6:1, Luke 10:38-40, I Corinthians 15:31
I met Jesus in my young adulthood. I repented and believed the good news about Jesus sacrifice for my sins and of his rule over my life. I submitted my life to his authority. I really wanted to please God with my whole life. I had already been engaged in a number of undesirable habits which were destructive in nature. One was smoking cigarettes. Rarely have I met anyone who did not desire to quit. I was one of those and especially after finding real meaning in life with Jesus. I had good reason to live a long time and I knew smoking would decrease my lifespan. So I started trying to quit. Up and down I went. Off and on I’d go. This went on for two years. I did not have the self discipline to change though I desired it greatly.
Without success I had asked God to deliver me, but on one specific night I talked to God about it and told him that I was giving up trying. I couldn’t stop so I wouldn’t stop. I was powerless in the face of my addiction. I cannot explain what happened after that time of total surrender to God and embracing my weakness. I never smoked again. The night I quit trying to quit, I quit. It is still a mystery to me. It has become a model for change in other areas of my life. I am powerless in the face of my own temptations, dysfunctions and, of course, Satan. I seem to always try to handle things myself first. I suppose it is a pride thing. It is only when I come to Jesus with my inability that I experience his wonderful ability in me. Perhaps the following thoughts will help you as well.
You may engage in destructive habits, addictive behavior, broken relationships, twisted values, bitterness, unhealthy dependencies, self centeredness, materialism, vanity and failure to lay your life for Jesus each day. Yet there is hope for a real turn around in your life. Jesus and Paul talked a lot as recorded in the Bible of a life that has been turned around. My experience was that this turn around has far more to do with desire than with ability. It is an intense desire to please God. Obviously, this should result in significant change over time. That desire to please God would be the driving force behind all actions. It would eventually produce positive changes. It has for me.
However, one could flounder in the frustration of desire without power to effect change. Apart from the discovery of the fullness of the Spirit of Jesus, people rarely have the self discipline to carry out most of their noble desires. And if one did, the potential for pride could nullify their achievements in the sight of God. He wants us to walk humbly before him in utter dependence on the Holy Spirit to empower the turnaround in our lives.
When you have an inner desire for your life to be turned around, change starts on the inside and positive difference begins to slowly work its way out. Paul advised in Philippians 2:12 “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” The working out of salvation with fear and trembling is the progressive awareness of how to appropriate God’s power in and through our lives. Humility causes us to fear our own self confidence and tremble at the awesome power of God to fulfill our desire to please him. That is the internal change I am describing. It is an essential quality of one who is a follower of Jesus.
As we mature in our relationship with him, our ability does not improve but our desire to please him brings an ever increasing communion which produces transformation. We need more experiences of feeling especially aware of God’s presence. In other words we need to feel close to Jesus as we live life each day. We need to be around other followers of Jesus whether it is many or just one other person to reinforce change through honest conversation. We need to tell others about the ways we are experiencing Jesus in our lives and we need to hear their stories. We need to connect with someone who has not progressed quite as far in experiencing change and help show them the way to follow Jesus. So how do we progress in being changed? Listen to Paul.
Paul called his experience one of dying daily. I believe he was explaining how he practiced change. He started every day by presenting his life and his day to Jesus. You can do that too. When we first come to follow him that is what we did. One dose of death to your own self will not last a lifetime, a year or even a week. Daily death to self and allowing the life of Jesus in you to work its way out through you is the greatest life one can experience. Imagine yourself as the vehicle through which Jesus does his work in your small part of the world. What a privilege. What an opportunity. Lay your life at his feet every morning. Die every day. It may take you 30 seconds or 2 hours but make sure you don’t start your day on your own, in your own strength and with your own agenda. Paul said, “I die daily.”
These are all a part of that transforming friendship you can have with Jesus. He is our ability and the closer we live with him the more we become aware of his power in us. We cannot perform enough good deeds to compensate for our bad deeds. We need Jesus because he is the only one who has paid the penalty for our sins in our behalf. We cannot make ourselves mature. We cannot keep ourselves in his grace. That is his responsibility and he does it as we simply do as Mary did and “sit at the feet of Jesus.” That is the context for a changed life. That is the way Jesus turns your life around. That is positive change.
I can never be certain as to how things might have been in my life if I had not been turned around by Jesus. I believe my wife would have given up and left some time ago. I believe I would be dead by now because of the abuse of alcohol in which I was engaged or from a smoking induced illness.
I do know that I would not be writing to you about my life and the wisdom of God. I would not have found this level of significance and satisfaction in life. I would not be enjoying the freedom from guilt that comes with the self discipline Jesus has placed within me. I would not be at peace with myself and others. I would not have confidence in the face of the inevitability of death. I would not have the level of meaningful relationships with family and friends that I now cherish.
All these qualities I received from Jesus. I have the wonderful privilege of serving his Kingdom every day of my life. Jesus is actually inviting you and me to the greatest change of all: serving the eternal purposes of his rule in people and on the earth. I would have served my own self focused desires had he not turned me around. He wants to do the same for you. Talk to him about it. He can and will turn you around if you want him to. It is my experience that this is real life.