Yes! You Really Can ChangeSample

How Do You Break Out of a Destructive Lifestyle?

A caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly is a miraculous change, but it’s a slow, messy one. Likewise, true transformation for most followers of Christ can take so long they start to wonder, what’s taking so long? And why, if we’re empowered by the Holy Spirit, does it seem so difficult?

One thing we need to recognize is that we all bring the baggage of our old destructive lifestyles with us when we come to Jesus, and it doesn’t just go away. 

If you’re trying to figure out how to live as a Christian while clinging to the security of your cocoon, you are going to struggle. A new life demands a new lifestyle. But fallen human nature tends to cling to the familiarity of the known, even when it may be destructive. Our new nature must embrace what seems unknown to us, even though we’ve been told much about it. 

To paraphrase the beautiful statement in 2 Corinthians 5:7 about becoming a new creation, you are no longer a worm. You’re a butterfly. Old things are gone. All is made new.

How can deeply flawed people in desperate situations live as God has called us? Paul gives us three principles in Ephesians 4:22-24 of holy transformation.

• Put off the old self. This is a step you must decide to take. Leave behind that old cocoon!
• Be made new in the renewing of your mind. The grammar is in the present tense. We need to continually put good, true, and beautiful material into our minds!
• Put on the new self. Choose to focus on your relationship with Christ, and reflect Him in all your choices, decisions, and activities.

Over time, as we learn to cooperate with His Spirit; He changes our thoughts, actions, attitudes, and words. The goal is to become so inwardly transformed that we no longer have to live a life that goes against our natural grain. Get ready to fly!

Reflection:

• What habits, temptations, thought patterns, and behaviors do you need to decisively break off and leave behind?
• In what ways do you need to see, think, and believe differently to conform to God’s perspective?

Prayer: Father, I’m ready to throw my old baggage away. Help me to put off my old attitudes, renew my mind, and put on a new understanding so I can change and transform as You desire me to change.