Foolish Things Christians Believe: My Behavior Is Not Fixed Day 4

On Your Own

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. Galatians 5:19–21 MSG

What a gruesome listing! But that’s what you’re likely to observe when someone surrenders to Satan’s lie that change is not possible, and probably not desirable anyway. They end up enslaved by a self-centered perspective, the desires of the flesh divorced from God’s guiding Spirit.

Thousands of dollars are spent on counseling and therapy as people come to a place where they can’t hide their failure, all too often with little result because self-reliance, self-improvement will never work.

But you, Newborn Child of God, you are given the gift of maturity and growth. He is preparing you to be all you can be to bring a witness and testimony to God’s grace to people stuck in their own self-designed pit. Read through that listing again and make note of the names the Spirit brings to your mind. Pray for them with the heart of Jesus. Ask the Spirit to show you where your lives intersect so that they can see God made change. Ask the Spirit to tune your ears to hear any hint that they know they are powerless to make any change on their own.