You Can Change #18 (Chapter 2)

Let's review where we've been in this chapter of You Can Change.

The chapter is titled "Why Would You Like to Change?" We're talking about what motivates us, and what should motivate us to change, grow, become more like Christ.

It should not be that I want to prove myself to God, to others, or myself. None of those are options because they all involve me trying to prove myself. The only way for to be approved to God is to be approved by God-- to be declared just by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the payment for my sins.

Tim Chester now transitions to what will occupy us for the remainder of chapter:

We don’t change so we can prove ourselves to God. We’re accepted by God so we can change. God gives us a new identity, and this new identity is the motive and basis for our change.

Again and again in the New Testament we are called to be what we are. It’s not about achieving something so we can impress. It’s about living out the new identity that God gives us in Jesus. (29)

Now, I believe there are more reasons than these for us to be motivated to pursue holiness, but it is clear that the Scriptures point us to who we are in Christ in order to encourage us to live like Christ.

Chester's first example is this: You are a child of the Father. Taken from Galatians 4:4-7 and 5:13, we have to be informed (and frequently reminded) that we are no longer slaves, but children. That means we are loved, accepted, and will receive all that God has promised to his own.

This doesn't mean that we will automatically be good. It doesn't mean that when we do wrong that God just winks and looks the other way like an indulgent or passive father. When the apostle Paul tells believers that they are no longer slaves but children with all the privileges that go along with that status, he tells them this in order to inspire them (and us!) to joyful, eager obedience.

Do you realize all that it means for you to be adopted into God's covenant family?

Do you know the kind of love, the extent of his grace, that he has for you?

Do you rest in the security of all his promises that extend through eternity?

Do you return to this truth again and again as a means of fighting temptation and sin?

Do you return to this truth again and again as a means of pursuing obedience and holiness?