Yes! You Really Can ChangeSample

How Do You Make It Last?

You may have the physical potential to run the 26.2 miles of a marathon. But very few people can do it tomorrow with any hope of finishing the race. No amount of trying, sweating, and desiring to finish lets someone accomplish what they aren’t prepared for. 

Some things require us to go into training to be successful. This also applies to the spiritual “race” we each must run in life.

God has given us all that we need for a life of godliness, but that doesn’t mean it comes automatically or without a process. We all have deeply embedded patterns in our thinking, attitudes, and behaviors, formed over many years. They’re highly resistant to change, and even when change begins to occur, we seem to default back into them under pressure.

Spiritual training is one of the most important lessons you can learn about the way God can transform your life. 

In Ephesians 4:25-32, Paul describes five areas of spiritual training. They represent specific aspects of our lives in which God wants to produce continual transformation and core issues where spiritual training becomes a catalyst for real change. Here they are:  

• Personal integrity. God desires truth, and if we can’t be honest, real transformation will never occur.   
• Emotional control. Spiritual growth is often thwarted by emotional lives not controlled by the Spirit of God.   
• Financial stewardship. Paul tells us to put off stealing and put on diligence, and in the process, we renew our minds to think differently about work. Why? So we are able to help those in need.  
• Positive speech. Don’t wound people with your words, but instead build one another up.  
• Having holy private attitudes. Paul gives us a list of things to put off, and each one can be dealt with through a strong sense of grace and the practice of forgiveness and love.

These training activities will help you let Jesus live His life in you. Eventually, the Holy Spirit on the inside will become visible on the outside. And then, because of your daily training, transformation will become the norm in your life.

The power to change is in us from the first day of our relationship with Jesus to our last day on earth. It’s available in full as soon as we believe in Him and begin our walk with Him. Embrace your training with joy, even if the process will be a long one. God is the master craftsman at work on your soul, your number one training partner, coach, and cheerleader. 

Hear Him saying, “Yes, you really can change!”

Reflection:   

• Are there any transformation “muscles” you’re trying to us in your own strength?  
• Practice putting off the old, renewing your mindset, and putting on the new in each of the five spiritual training disciplines listed here so transformation can become the norm in your life.

Prayer: Lord, I have everything I need in You to put off my old ways, change the way I think, and put on Your new life. Help me continue to transform until I am the person you desire me to be!

To purchase a copy of Yes, You Really Can Change by Chip Ingram, click/tap here.