How Do I Change?
You ever ask that question?
I have.
One of the more discouraging things I see in many Christians is that they think of changing as mainly a negative thing. Not that they are negative about wanting to change, though it often gets there, but negative in their approach to change.
They try to stop doing this, stop saying that, stop going there, stop losing their temper, stop lusting, stop lying, and stop giving in.
Of course this is part of change, this ability to stop, but we need something more. You see, it may surprise you, but God commands you and I to change. Ephesians 4:17 is clear that believers are no longer to,
“walk as the Gentiles do.”
In other words, they have to change their lifestyle. A Christian life can’t be lived as though Christ has made no difference in it. Indeed, God calls for a new manner of life. Yet, many people have a hard time changing.
Jay Adams, who was a big voice in biblical based counseling, spoke about change happening when a person goes from feeling-motivated living to commandment-motivated living. That is, we are no longer governed by whatever we feel in the moment, but by what God has said.
You see, our old life loves to say, I feel angry, therefore I may speak harsh words. Or it may say, I feel afraid, therefore I can leave. Or I feel this desire, therefore I can indulge myself in it. But the new life asks a different kind of question:
“What has God commanded in this situation?”
I think this is where we need to start and this is the first thing we must understand:
God commands change.
The second thing we need to know is that God effects this change by renewing the image ruined by the fall.
In Ephesians 4:20–24, it says that believers “did not learn Christ that way,” but are to “put off your old self,” “be renewed in the spirit of your minds,” and “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” This sounds a lot bigger than behavior management, doesn’t it? I think we can agree that this sounds like transformation!
In Colossians 3, it says something similar when it tells us that the new self “is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10).
It’s important that we understand that sin didn’t just make us do bad things. It’s way worse than that. Sin corrupted the whole person. It doesn’t take much, as I look back on my life, to understand that the image has been marred. My thinking was darkened, my desires were disordered, and my habits were bent away from God. So, in relation to this, I think it’s safe to say that change has to be deeper than simply my behavior.
This is why the Holy Spirit was given to each of us. He is the one who helps to renew us.
How you ask?
Well, he renews us in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. In other words, God changes us from the inside out. We are to be men and women filled with the Word. So much so that it controls us. We are to set our minds on things above and to let the word dwell in us richly. This is the knowledge. After that we begin to think differently and then we live differently. This is the work of renewing that believers need to embrace and to take seriously. This is how we change. Indeed, God does this work through His Spirit, through His Word, and through the local church.
This work is never by ourselves.
Which brings us to the third point: God effects this change by enabling us to put off the old man and put on the new man. It is him who wills and works through us for his good pleasure.
The old man isn’t just a collection of bad acts, but it’s the former manner of life. It’s my old response pattern. It’s the familiar groove into which I fall when pressed. For some people this means, when pressed, they move to anger. Others to lying, to self-pity, to withdrawal, or to lust. These are their patterns. But we have to be clear, the new man is not just the absence of those patterns. Instead, it’s a new biblical manner of life.
It comes with new habitual patterns to replace the old patterns. So God doesn’t just say, Stop. Rather, He says, let’s make that new. More than anything, the Bible shows us that God provides scriptural alternatives. It shows us that change is a double-sided coin. Change isn’t just breaking habits alone, but also replacing them.
We must focus on both.
Let me show you a few examples: In Ephesians 4:25 it doesn’t just tell us, “Stop lying.” But it says, “putting away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.” You see? The sin is put off, but truth must be put on!
Or think of 1 Peter 3:9: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.” So, don’t just stop returning evil, instead return evil with good and bless the one who is doing evil towards you. There’s always an alternative that must never be ignored.
You see?
Paul does this all throughout Ephesians 4. He says let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, “so that he may have something to share” (v. 28). And, Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, “but only such as is good for building up” (v. 29). Again, don’t just stop the bad stuff, but more than that, learn the good!
(👆Here is another example found in Colossians)
I think this is where many Christians grow discouraged, because they have been trying to change by “subtraction” alone. They try to not explode, to not scroll, not lust, not lie, and not steal, but they haven’t learned what righteous pattern is meant to replace the sinful one.
And until that happens, the old habit remains intact and strong.
Your task as a Christian, then, and really with anyone you want to disciple (wife, kids, friends) in general, is twofold: to discover the biblical alternatives and to help one another to replace old patterns with new ones. That isn’t very fun, and it’s often very slow. It requires patient observation, honest self-examination, prayer, practice, failure, repentance, and trying again and again. But this will yield real change, especially within a local church who can walk with you!
I know it because I practice these things and have taught my wife also. The Christian life isn’t just the breaking of habits. It’s the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new. All of it is with the help and power of the Holy Spirit, which is why there is hope. The God who commands this change is the God who effects it by his Spirit, through his Word, as he renews sinful people into the likeness of Christ.
We are men and women saved by grace and fully forgiven. Let’s embrace this life of grace and seek to walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel that we love.
Let’s start the work of change, and even more, live lives that cling to Christ!
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Excellent and God honoring.
Yes! -This work is never by ourselves.