Process of Personal Change

This past Sunday our focus was on the subject of personal change.  Specifically, we focused on God's commitment to not only forgive our mistakes but to work deep inside our lives, transforming us at the root of those mistakes.  While I sincerely believe in this type of God-achieved transformation, as a matter of fact it's the only type that I believe yields true change, I also believe that God does not act alone in this process but that we have an unavoidable role to play as well.

 

This Sunday, our scripture text is I John 3:1-7.  It reads: ¹ How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.  ⁴ Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. ⁵ But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. ⁶ No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.  ⁷ Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

 

From this incredible text, Sunday's focus will be our afore-mentioned role in the process of personal change.  All of us want to be better, stronger, deeper people, so...  what part of that growth is God's responsibility?  What part is ours?  How do these roles coincide?  How effective can they be, i.e., how much can we really change?

 

Many are skeptical, even cynical, about the potential of people to truly change, thus the axiom, ''A leopard can not change its spots.''  One of the privileges of my vocation is to have seen that adage debunked over and over again.  I can't begin to recount in this space the stories of significant, life-long change that I have witnessed. 

 

My prayer for every one of us is that we might ever be on the Potter's wheel, always prone to God's work and actively complicit in the process of becoming the person God created us to be.  I hope you'll be there at one of our services Sunday (9:15 & 11:15) as we examine this incredibly important subject.

 

See you Sunday,

Stan