Drop by Drop: How God Changes Us
“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”—2 Cor. 7:10
Over the past couple posts, I’ve been exploring the idea of sin and its impact on how it affects all of us in how we think, perceive, and interpret life—from the moment of conception. Like breathing air, we cannot imagine anything else.
It impacts every day, every interaction with others, every thought we think. It is what makes understanding the idea of being a saint unnatural. It twists how we look at suffering.
At the very heart of sin is a deviation from the relationship God intended with us.
We were created to live and walk with God every moment of our lives, but as it was with Adam and Eve after the fall, so it is with us. We blindly try to muddle through and manage this broken, thorn-infested world by our own devices. Worse, we have replaced His rightful rule in our lives with our own.
For this, all of us stand guilty before God, even before we commit a single act. Thanks to the original sin, we now are all born in like rebellion. Even if we look like good people on the outside.
God knew that this breach in our relationship is our ultimate problem. No amount of penance, jail time, or good works will rectify this fundamental condition we all must deal with. We have a debt to pay, and we cannot pay it.
And this is the good news of the Gospel. Jesus pays this insurmountable debt on our behalf, but then we receive all the benefits. This includes eternal life in heaven, but there is also so much more, including a new identity as saint and a new relationship with suffering.
Though our blessings through Christ are beyond count or measure, I want to focus on this one today: real change is possible.
Not just changed habits or changed behavior, but as changed beings, from the inside out.
This is possible because one of the gifts that come with our salvation is the promise of God the Holy Spirit living within our newly cleansed hearts. He is the one that teaches and guides us to live differently as new creations (John 14:26). He gives us the strength to challenge the sinful tendencies that still wage war within (Rom. 7) as well as pursue new paths of righteousness.
So how does this happen?
Review Your Heart With the Help of the Holy Spirit
If we are born blind to sin, the first thing we need is help seeing it. Just like the blind people Jesus healed, we need outside intervention from God Himself. And this revelation comes in the form of conviction: of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).
The Holy Spirit that now lives within us desires to help us see what He sees, so with His help, we start by praying with the psalmist: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Ps. 139:23, 24)
We humbly recognize our innate blindness to our own sin. So the first step to change is to ask God the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see our hearts as they really are. Learning to stop and observe your responses can help.
What do my actions and words display about what I truly believe about God? About myself? About others?
What am I thinking underneath the surface?
Who is functioning as God in this situation? Am I trusting something else (including myself) besides Him?
These are the things we want the Holy Spirit to help reveal to us. When He shows us our false beliefs, natural desires that have gotten out of hand, or even the seemingly innocent idols we worship, we can begin to see change.
Respond With Godly Grief
Admittedly, to see your sinfulness is not a pleasant experience. To be shown your true colors, to have light shone into our secret inner closets where we’d rather not see is humbling.
But even in this, the power of the Gospel through Christ can help us start making changes.
When we see the truth of our hearts, it’s natural to feel worldly grief, as 2 Cor. 7:10 tells us. Worldly grief is the grief of getting caught. We feel bad about the results of our sin and often try to escape it.
But godly grief goes further. It is the awareness that first and foremost, my sin is an offense to God before it is an offense to others—and the breach of that relationship is what brings us grief. It doesn’t matter if the offense is overt and obvious or hidden in our heart.
If we have become saints, this relationship with our heavenly Father is so dear to us that we are not only aware of our broken relationship but we have a new desire to restore that fellowship. We have a fresh appreciation of God’s grace and mercy towards us and turn back to Him in humility, with a desire to restore fellowship with Him.
This is the impetus and motivation for change that we often miss. Self-help books cannot generate this. But the godly grief of a child who wants to make her Father glad again will help us to change from the heart.
Repent From the Heart to Restore Fellowship With Him
If we truly want to see deep change, this is the first step—expressing our godly grief and contrition before Him. And the good news is this: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps. 51:17)
This is the beginning of repentance. When we recognize that our offense is first and foremost towards God, our first step towards change is rectifying that relationship, something no popular self-help book will tell us to do. It is a Godward turn, not merely a change in behavior alone.
We express our repentance through confession (1 John 1:9). This means specifically and humbly naming our offense to Him when He reveals it to us.
One way I often do this is by naming my sinful response and then putting into words how that contradicts His nature or His truth as revealed in the Bible:
“Father, I confess that when I (action, thought, or words), I am really saying (something contrary to God’s character or truth).”
Father, I confess that when I stockpile notebooks even though I don’t need that many, I am really saying that I don’t believe you will provide for me when I need a notebook.
Father, I confess that when I hang on to old magazines “just in case” I need what is in them instead of throwing them away, I am really saying that I don’t trust you to provide the information I need when I need it.
Father, I confess that when I keep a blouse because it was a gift from a friend, I am really saying that true Christian fellowship is based on things, not our relationship in Christ.
When we challenge ourselves to put these things into words, it makes it more clear how foolish it sounds. And even if it doesn’t sound foolish, it is honest. This helps me to be truthful with God and build a more honest relationship with Him.
Replace Your Old Ways With New Ones
After we confess the truth before God, we take the next step of repentance: making the exchange, making the u-turn, putting off the old and putting on the new. Asking God for forgiveness is not a magic wand where—poof!—we are automatically changed.
Change, sanctification, happens, as Dane Ortlund points out in his book, Deeper, with 100% God’s work and 100% mine. It’s not all my own effort (as self-help books suggest), nor is it a “let go and let God” mentality.
If I desire to see change, I must put my all into it, but I do so leaning on the wisdom God gives us from His Word. He helps me to chart a new course, but I must also expect to actually do the hard work of forging these new paths in my life.
To do this we:
Remember that any change needs to be preceded by truth about God.
As Mike Emlet points out in Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners, “We ‘do’ because God has ‘done.’” (p. 123). Change happens because God has made it possible for us through Christ. A desire to live as Christ does now permeates our hearts.
For me, the truth that I am now a child of God through Christ should remind me that I have a new relationship with Him. We are now in a covenant relationship, and He is committed to caring for all my needs as an earthly father does for his child.
Because this is true, I need not hold on to my earthly possessions in an attempt to care for myself. Living in faith and trust means I will trust that if I should need something in the future, I believe that He will see to it that I have what I need—or help me to make do with what I have.
Respond in faith to God in the moments where I am tempted to do otherwise.
If my problem is first and foremost about my going off-track with God, then change begins by responding in a Godward direction.
For me, this begins with recognizing the “worship moments” where my tendency towards hoarding rises up, when I am tempted to:
stock up on extras I don’t need
hang on to things “just in case”
keep gifts I don’t need or want
These may seem ordinary, but they actually bring out other issues in my heart. The fear that if I miss the next good deal, another may never come around again. The worry that I won’t have what I need on hand. The anxiety of what my friend would think if I gave the blouse away.
Change begins when I challenge these beliefs.
There will always be another sale. If I run out before the next sale, I can trust God to provide me what I need, even if it isn’t on sale.
If I need a recipe, we live in an era when I can find something similar. I can trust God to provide me what I need to prepare the dish I need, even if it isn’t from that particular source.
If I give away the blouse, my friend will not know it. A good friendship is not based on whether or not I keep every gift given to me. I can trust God to sustain my friendship on deeper grounds than that.
Act in faith in light of my changed thoughts.
Change often begins when we challenge our thinking in light of God. Learning to think differently is in itself a change!
Taking the next step also requires faith. Often times, this is where our attempts to change begin, without the prerequisite thinking we just did beforehand. This is often why it is hard to maintain change, because we haven’t a moral foundation as to why.
But if I have done this mental work, it won’t necessarily make the job easier, but I can have peace in my heart that I am glorifying God and growing in faith as I do so.
So that means I can
Pass up the sale
Throw away the magazines
Give away the blouse
Not because I ought to, but because by doing so, I am acting in faith that my God will take care of me. Doing these things is not just a great way to declutter. When I do these things in light of what God has already done for me, I please Him with my trust.
Conclusion
Again, this seems like such a “little” thing. But to me, it isn’t. It’s unnatural for me to think this way.
It is also unnatural for me to be patient when others are slow—or slow me down. It is unnatural for me to try to understand another’s point of view as valid when it contradicts my own. It is unnatural for me to sacrifice yet again for a child who seems to take more than I think I can give.
But whether big or small, the process of change begins first with my relationship with God. As I do business with Him in the level of my heart, He helps me to translate biblical truths into my everyday responses and relationships.
Change first begins vertically—with Him—and then trickles horizontally—to others. Little by little, like drops of water that shape hard rock, God uses these small choices to effect the reshaping of my heart to become like Christ.
