We all struggle with various hardships and challenges. Some things are simply the result of living in a broken and fallen world. Others are the consequences of choices we have made – both for better and for worse. The question is: how can we get beyond just treating symptoms and begin to heal and change at the deeper level of our hearts?
Here is some Good News – change is possible in Christ!
This visual was inspired by Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane’s helpful counseling book, How People Change. I adapted it to fit the pattern of The Gospel Way – turning from both self-focused rebellion and self-reliant religion with total confidence in Christ and full commitment to Him. Only as we humble ourselves through confession and repentance can we place ourselves before God so that He can change us.
Transformation only happens at the foot of the cross. But if we will study, believe and apply the Gospel to our hearts and lives we will begin to experience the truth that the Gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
The first step toward change is often the most difficult: admitting you were wrong. We are often “stiff-necked” and refuse to bow, even when we know the grace and glory of our God. But “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). If we will bow before Him in humility and repentance, we are in position to experience the fullness of God’s grace at the foot of the cross. Watch this short video that shows the way to revival (experiencing more of the life of Jesus) is by being broken before the Lord.
Here are some excerpts from Roy Hession’s The Calvary Road for further encouragement to come to Jesus in humility, brokenness and surrender so that He can fill you with His grace, life and power to change.
“For revival is not a green valley getting greener, but a valley full of dry bones being made to live again… (Ezek. 37). It is not good Christians becoming better Christians – as God sees us there are not any good Christians – but rather Christians honestly confessing that their Christian life is a valley of dry bones and by that very confession qualifying for the grace that flows from the cross and makes all things new. (12)
Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious… And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others. And that is revival in its essence. (19)
The first thing we must learn is that our wills must be broken to His will. To be broken is the beginning of revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but it is the only way… The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to God’s will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory – that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all… (20)
Brokenness, however, is but the beginning of revival. Revival itself is being absolutely filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and that is victorious living… All we have to do is to present our empty, broken self and let Him fill and keep filed. Andrew Murray says, ‘Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in.’ …the human heart [is] a cup, which we hold out to Jesus, longing that He might fill it with the Water of Life. (25)
People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it is just the opposite. It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. (26)
Only one things prevents Jesus filling our cups as He passes by, and this is sin in one of its thousand forms. The Lord does not fill dirty cups. (26)
But if we will go back to Calvary and learn afresh the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse moment by moment from the beginnings of sin, then we have learned the secret of cups constantly cleansed and constantly overflowing.” (27)
The Gospel is the fuel of worship and a life of worship is what breaks us free from the idolatry embedded in our hearts. Willpower cannot overcome idolatry any more than you can will a dark room to become light. You must come to the source of light and find in Him the joy your heart longs for. Then the light of the glory of Christ will drive out the darkness of your idolatry and you will begin to change.
Let the truth of the Gospel fill your heart with joy in the Lord!