The Process of Growth
How many of you feel weak, powerless against your own negative emotions, or against your struggles in life? How many of you might be stuck in your spiritual journey? There’s an answer for you! In this episode, we explore the transformative power of the Holy Spirit and how it can set you free from the things you are struggling with in life. Let’s dive in!
Hi everyone and welcome back! I’m glad you’re with me today as we dive into what scripture says about who Jesus is and how to follow Him!
Over the last few episodes we’ve talked about a few ways that we can hear the Holy Spirit speak truth in our lives so that our spiritual lives can heal and be renewed from the effects of sin.
It’s important that we push through all of the distractions that keep us from hearing His voice and learn to listen to His voice in order to follow Him and become the people we are called to be!
However, there's another step that we have to take in order to follow Jesus and become the people He designed us to be! We have to learn to obey His voice!
The question is: can we obey the voice of God consistently without help? If we look at Scripture we see that the answer is a hard “NO” as much as we want to follow His voice and obey His commands perfectly we still have to deal with our corrupted nature!
We still have to learn how to overcome the struggles that are still part of our human existence such as fear, doubt, anger, hatred, lust, etc. Unfortunately, these are still part of us and the enemy will put us through temptations and trials that will test us and unfortunately, if we are weak in these areas we will always mess up!
THE HOLY SPIRIT
Fortunately though, God provides us with an answer. As we’ve discussed over the last few episodes Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to help us become the people we are called to be. He reveals the truth of our sin and the need for Jesus, helps us know the truth of who He is. He also begins the process of sanctification where He purifies our hearts and minds and helps us live the life He wants us to live.
So, how does He do this? Many of you might look at this and think, does this mean He magically transforms me into a better person and I'll become perfect?
The process of Sanctification
The short answer is no. Sanctification is a lifelong process that the Holy Spirit brings us through of becoming perfect and more like Jesus, but there is a requirement on our part.
All of us, even as followers of Jesus, will always struggle with something, some more than others. We have fears, doubts, insecurities, negative emotions, areas that we are weak in. We give into temptation quickly and are really easily distracted from the Holy Spirit’s voice. The important thing to remember in a life with Jesus is this: we still have the choice to follow Him or not. This means that as much as we’d like to be completely and wholly set free from our struggles and not have to endure the temptations and trials that we have to go through in this life, we have a choice to make. We can accept what He’s doing as He leads us through life or continue to stay in our struggle.
The Holy Spirit cannot speak into our lives or sanctify and renew us without us doing our parts and obeying His voice. We still have the choice to allow ourselves to submit to the Holy Spirit and allow ourselves to go through this process of sanctification every moment of every day.
OUR RESPONSIBILITIES
So what are our responsibilities in this process of sanctification?
* The first is to simply learn to hear His voice as He reveals the truth to us. The only way we can know if we need to be purified in a certain area is He reveals it to us as He speaks the truth to us. You won’t ever be set free if you don’t hear His voice speaking to you.
* Once you do hear the truth from Him, it’s your responsibility to then accept two things
* Accept that you need to change
* Accept that you need His help to be set free from it.
Sometimes we hold on to weaknesses simply because we’re comfortable in them or even enjoy them. Until we learn to accept these two things we cannot move forward and become free.
Once you accept these two things you can then surrender the struggle to Him, asking for forgiveness and asking Him to set you free from it.
This is the moment that the Holy Spirit can truly step in and begin the process of transforming you.
This is the most challenging step because it requires us to allow Him to begin to change us.
Many of us don’t like to change. We’re willing to settle for forgiveness and we ask Him to set us free but we’re not actually willing to endure the necessary pain and discomfort that change will always bring. Like I said, sometimes we’re comfortable in our weaknesses and struggles or we enjoy them too much.
So how can we allow Him to change us?
REPENTANCE
The requirement for allowing Him to change us is true repentance.
Now this word is a churchy word that you might have heard. It simply means having a mindset change that allows you to turn away from something completely and turn towards God. Repentance is different from saying you’re sorry and asking for forgiveness. It requires you to actually turn away from something completely. Sometimes we say we’re sorry, but then turn around and do it again because we don’t actually want to be free from it. I think of those Catholics who practice confession, confessing their wrongs over and over again. Those who practice confession without repentance never truly understand that there is more to repentance than just saying you’re sorry over and over again, but never changing or even feeling remorse for the wrongs that you’re doing. This isn’t true repentance and God will never honor these kinds of confessions. We see this in Scripture in 1 Samuel when Saul asked for forgiveness, but never truly repented. Because he wasn’t truly repentant messed up again later and lost the kingdom. David, on the other hand messed up constantly, but always asked for forgiveness, repented and moved forward in His life.
True repentance is being willing to change your mind about something to the point that you no longer want to do it again. Yes, we might mess up a few times before we get to this point, but with the Holy Spirit’s help we can get to this point where we’re truly repentant and turn completely from the thing that we’re struggling with.
SURRENDER
Another requirement that we have in order to truly change is to surrender our lives to the Holy Spirit and let Him renew our mind daily. I talked about this last week. But renewal takes surrender.
This is actually a verse in Scripture that is a great practice to implement into your daily life in order to find true freedom from your struggles. Paul challenges us in Romans 12:1-2 to
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Even though we might change our mind about our struggle it doesn’t mean that our minds can’t be changed again. After all, we're easily deceived and easily distracted from following the Holy Spirit. We need to daily surrender our lives to God and allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds and hearts so that we can endure what life throws at us.
How do we do this, especially when we are going through hard times and suffering? By practicing seeking Him, being in His presence and listening to His voice! He renews us by filling us with His presence and everything that we find in it, peace, joy, love, etc. and He speaks truth to our hearts so that we can endure the trials of the day and not give into our weaknesses. We stay in His will, following Him well, remaining pure, when we are daily renewed by Him.
Another way we are renewed is by practicing community. James 5:13-16 says
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Even in hard times if we remain focused on Him, surrendering our lives and allowing Him to renew us, He will help us to stay firm in Him.
So what are the results we should see in our lives if we do these 6 things?
Galatians 5 gives us a clear picture of what sanctification looks like as we do our part in this process. We looked a bit at this last week.
Paul tells us:
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
So if we allow ourselves to go through this purification process that the Holy Spirit leads us through we will see a few things start to change in our lives:
* Where before we might have given in to hatred, jealous, bitterness, wrath towards others we now are filled with God’s love
* Where before where fear, anxiety, doubt, ect might have controlled us we now are fill with God’s peace.
* Where before we might have been depressed, lonely, and sad all of the time we now are filled with God’s joy
* Where before we might have been impatient with people all of the time we are now filled with God’s patience
* Where before we might have been rude and mean to people because of our own need to feel good about ourselves or in control we now are filled with God’s kindness
* Where before we did evil things all of the time we are now filled with God’s goodness
* Where before we were inconsistent in follow Jesus and obeying Him we are now filled with His faithfulness
* Where before we were prideful and arrogant we are now filled with His gentleness and humility.
* Where before we might have given into our own passions and need for pleasure and entertainment we can now practice His self control.
This is what transformation and sanctification looks like. How many of you want to be like this? All it takes is practicing these 6 things and accepting the Holy Spirit’s transformation in your life. This is what it looks like to follow Jesus.
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