The gospel changes everything.
Whether you have followed Jesus for a few days or followed him for thirty years, you know that he is our hope and our salvation. But when you wake up and look in the mirror each day, how do you change into a person who lives and looks more like Jesus? How does your day-to-day spiritual growth happen?
This is where we’re headed with this six-week study. And let’s be clear. This isn’t a self-help study. There’s no checklist of things for you to strike off that will take you from point A to point B. The gospel is what changes you. The work of the Holy Spirt in your life changes you. So, what does it look like to let the gospel transform you every day? We’re going to discover that we don’t work for our salvation. We work out our salvation.
There is a big word we use for working out our salvation called sanctification. It just means the process of becoming more like Jesus every single day. We love him. We have a relationship with him. Now how do we live like him?
We want to change, but we cannot do it our own. Does that make you feel free or like a failure? For those of us who like control and being able to do everything on our own, the need for help feels uncomfortable. But an artist does not stare at his paint brushes and expect them to create by themselves. He picks them up. He combines them with paint. He cleans them. He creates. In the same way, the Holy Spirit works in us and through us. Another one of our studies, Enjoying Jesus, states: “Jesus doesn’t call us to simply put his teaching into practice by our own willpower. If we try to do that, we will fail. We will be utterly unprepared to turn the other cheek or to love our enemy if we haven’t spent time with Christ in the unseen, everyday things.”
We were made to reflect our savior, but we don’t do that on our own. We become more like Jesus when we surrender and let him work in us. You are his creation, and he has a great plan in mind for you. When you get to know him more, it becomes so much easier to see that his way for you is better than your own way. Take a deep breath knowing that.
There is hope. You can change because Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit changes you. Praise be to God. Hope is alive.
I would like to learn to seek Jesus when I’m feeling lonely
I want to change my mindset to faith from fear. I want to trust God fully and completely with my life and walk boldly into the life that he has called me to live.
I want to move forward, to get out of " this stagnant" state of letting all of life’s stuff distract me from the one true story: living for Jesus in all I do!
I want to find a study to lead women who feel inadequate or stuck.. A study that will show by the Spirit’s power the way.
I want to stop worrying and being anxious about the uncertainty in the world now. I want to depend on Jesus and trust God. I keep praying for courage to trust God.
I hope I will get so comfortable with the idea the Power that resurrected Jesus actually resides in me and He loves me and wants to guide, comfort, and protect me. I want to rebuke the enemy in the name of Jesus without thinking every time he plants a doubt or lie in my mind.
To change any sinful habits and thoughts through the Holy Spirit’s guidance and works in me.
Closer to God on a daily basis through the Holy Spirit.
To completely trust God with my life. To be so in tune with the Holy Spirit as he leads me day by day.
I want and need to change to be more like Jesus towards others and especially at home with my husband. During this pandemic I am his one human that he sees and interacts with and sadly and often my behavior is not like Christ. I like to be in control. However, I am not God, nor do I want to be. How He must grieve when He sees what’s going on today. My heart breaks and I will turn away but God sees it all, all the time. I have tried to change and failed miserably. I need the power of the Holy Spirit every day to change my heart, mind, thoughts and actions. I need to be still, instead of being busy and hurrying through life, so I can hear and be led and guided to be more like Jesus each day until He calls me home. When I arrive there I want Jesus to say, well done good and faithful servant! Only He can change transform me from the inside out to allow this to happen. Jesus to you I surrender.