Creating a Secure CHURCH
PART 2 : Secure in Relationships
Chapter 4 : Imperfect People!
4.2 Fundamental Truths about Change
Christian and Non-Christian
Just a minute! Before we move on into this we need to note something that is very basic and very important. We can expect Christians to change, but if you have non-Christians attending your meetings, then we have no grounds to expect them to change! So far they haven’t seen their need, haven’t met God and aren’t in the change business! This discussion is all about Christians, not non-Christians.
We will see later that we CAN help Christians change, after we have first taken them as they are, but for the non-Christian the change they need is to surrender to Christ. All else will then follow.
Outward and Inward Changes
All of us do change on the outward, Christian and non-Christian, to become more socially acceptable when we want to fit in. If the non-Christian who attends our meetings finds benefit from them and from the friendship they find there, then there is quite likely to be an outward change, as they seek to conform to the norms of our gathering. They will want to be like us, but this is purely an outward, cosmetic change.
Real change is change on the inside, and this only happens when a person truly repents and puts their trust in Christ to save them (from their past, present and future failure and guilt). Jesus’ teaching clearly indicated that a religion that was only concerned with the outside, was not what he and his Father were looking for (e.g. Mt 23:25-28). When there has been a heart change (i.e. on the inside), then all else will change (on the outside).
Who Brings the Change
So the Christian life is about change. Who is it that brings that change?
Phil 2:12,13 continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (i.e. YOU do it), for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (i.e. HE is working in you)
So the change in our lives is a combination of God working and me working on my life. Now God may use you to help bring changes in me, and this book is perhaps all about that side of it, but if He does use us, it is to be as HE motivates, guides and directs us, not as we decide we’ll do it. One of the key ways that I am to be “working” is to put on the character of Christ, then God will move through that.
An Example of the Divine-Human Partnership
This is perhaps seen most clearly in the New Testament in respect of believing wives with unbelieving husbands. In 1 Pet 3:1-6 the apostle Peter encourages Christian wives to let their gracious, loving behaviour be the greatest factor of change in the lives of their husbands. Our natural tendency is to badger or berate others who we want to change.
Nagging wives are the epitome of someone wanting (perhaps for very good reasons!) to change another. From the outset, we must come to a place of accepting that WE do not change other people – God does! That’s why Peter refers to the women of the past (in the Old Testament) who “put their hope in God” (v.5)
The new Christian has little knowledge of what is required of him or her by God. Some things they ‘instinctively’ know (by the Spirit within them) are now not for them. Many of us forget that when God prophesied through Jeremiah about a new covenant (Jer 31:33,34), it included Him putting His law within us. This is what happened when the Holy Spirit indwelt us at conversion. Therefore the Holy Spirit tells us what is wrong.
Many of us get frustrated with people and, if we were able to be honest about it, feel we need to help God out in the process of changing others. We’d like to DO something to change them, but unless we’re a leader called to a particular ministry, our means of changing other people is simply to love them and leave the rest of the work of change up to God, i.e. we’re to let the character of Jesus shine through us, and God will do the rest.
God works in different ways
I remember this happening so very clearly to a man who is now a good friend. When he came to the Lord he smoked a lot. My temptation was to tell him, “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16 etc.) and smoking is doing it harm. You should give up smoking”, but I didn’t. I knew this man now had a living and vibrant relationship with his Saviour and that he would know the truth about it.
On the day of his baptism he determined to give up smoking. He did it the human way, he chewed gum. Five days later his face ached so much from chewing that he went to his house group and asked them to pray for him. As they went to pray, the power of God hit him and knocked him down. Not only was he instantly delivered from any desire to smoke again, but he was miraculously healed of a major knee injury that he had had for years. The point was that he knew he had to give it up; he didn’t need me telling him and making him feel worse.
In this instance I allowed the Holy Spirit to speak to him, and when he’d heard it, God turned up and brought the required change in a dramatic way.
But it’s not always the same with every person or every situation. My mother was approaching sixty, didn’t know Jesus (despite the fact that I had told her all I could about him) and smoked constantly, had a smokers cough and frequently suffered from bronchitis. One day when she was coughing particularly badly, I casually said, “You ought to give up smoking, Mum; it’s not doing you any good”. When she replied that she had tried dozens of times I found myself saying, “You know, you ought to ask the Lord. He could help you.”
To cut a long story short, I was back home a few months later (I was living away from home by then) and noticed there was something different in the house. Eventually I realised Mum was not smoking and when I mentioned it she confessed, well, yes, she had spoken to Jesus and well, yes, she had become a Christian, and well, yes, her desire to smoke had gone, as had her cough – and she never had bronchitis again!
What am I saying here? I’m saying that God communicates with His children, does things for them – and in different ways for different people. When I became a Christian I instinctively knew it was wrong for me to swear, but abusive language had become a part of my life, so much so that it was six months before the last swear word passed my lips. Today I have no need to swear, so why swear? There was a difference between knowing the thing and achieving it. I wanted to stop but it was months before, for whatever reason, the Lord enabled me to stop.
And with our people
When we look at some of the people in our church we often know when something is not right in their lives, and quite often it’s just that they don’t know how to deal with it. The best strategy is to love them, share when asked, pray continually – and watch God work in them – and sometimes it may be through us! At other times He’ll do it without any reference to anyone else.
The key to change is something I said above in the description of my friend – he had a living and vibrant relationship with his Saviour. Therein is half the answer. The other half is our loving and caring acceptance of others. Those two things will bring the change. We may not be able to do much about the former, but we can certainly take our responsibility for the latter.
Conclusion? God is much better at changing other people than I am, and He uses a variety of way to achieve it, mostly by simply loving them and blessing them, but sometimes He comes in sovereign power! Our role is to love people and let God be God!
