What's Possible

In the previous article I discussed the life transformation that can take place when you trust Jesus minute by minute and step by step with the details of your life. I proposed that He can and will change your life, and you will become more like Him, if you do that.

Even as I pushed the “send” button that transmitted my article via cyberspace to the local newspaper here in Sterling, I could hear the sound of unbelief saying, “Yeah, riiiiight! This is Sterling, and we’re different. We don’t change.”

I could hear those words, because I’ve heard them before. Indeed, any pastor who has been here more than a few months has heard those words, or read them in the archived minutes of his church’s business meetings.

Think with me for a moment about the magnitude of those words, “We don’t change.” Jesus came to change lives, to transform them utterly. Remember that Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, which would be miracle enough. No, He came to do much more than that. The transformation He works is nothing less than making dead people alive. Change, in other words, is so very at the heart of what Jesus came to do, that saying “We don’t change” is the same as saying “Jesus, we don’t want You here.”

With that in mind, let’s remember why we often don’t want to change. I think it has to do with our conviction about what’s possible. Let’s face it: we either live up to our beliefs or live down to them. I think a lot of the time when we say, “We don’t change,” what we really mean is “We can’t change.” Maybe other people can, in nicer towns, where people have more money or more opportunity, but not us, not here.

When we talk like that or think like that, we’re focusing on the wrong part of the picture, and by “the wrong part,” I mean us. The issue, at its most basic, is not whether we can change, but rather, whether God, Who spoke the world into existence and raised His Son from the dead, can change us. Do we believe God can change us?

Here are some questions we who claim to trust Jesus need to ask.

What’s possible . . . when human beings pursue the kingdom of God with Jesus as their Leader?

What’s possible . . . when we learn to bring the details of everyday living under the Lordship of the crucified and risen Son of God?

What’s possible . . . when we enter into apprenticeship in the service of the King, with the Holy Spirit as our Teacher and Guide?

What’s possible . . . when we dare to make radical obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ the cause and source of our life’s joys?

Anybody out there want to find out . . .

. . . what’s possible?