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“As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him.”

A thought by Rick Warren from his book. God's Power to Change Your Life (Living with Purpose) (p. 31). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

There are other ways beside the Bible that God uses to change us.

Rick says, “God’s number one purpose in your life is to make you like Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make the child of God more like the Son of God. And what is Jesus like? His life on earth embodied the ninefold fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

“God’s ideal way of changing us is to have us read the Bible to find out how we should live and then depend on his indwelling Spirit to enable us to do it. Unfortunately, most of us are stubborn, and we don’t change that easily. So God brings in a third tool to work on us — circumstances. Problems, pressures, heartaches, difficulties, and stress always get our attention. C. S. Lewis once said that ‘God whispers to us in our pleasure but He shouts to us in our pain.’”

Rick goes on, “The interesting thing about how God uses circumstances is that the source of the circumstances makes no difference to him. We often bring problems on ourselves by faulty decisions, bad judgments, and sins. At other times our problems are caused by other people. Sometimes the devil causes things to happen to us as he did to Job. But God says the source of the circumstance is irrelevant. ‘I will still use it in your life,’ he says. ‘I will fit it into my pattern; I will fit it into my great plan for your life, to make you like Jesus Christ.’ So, there is no circumstance in life from which we cannot learn if we’ll just have the right attitude. Proverbs 20:30 has some more good news: ‘Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.’ Perhaps you have experienced the truth of this verse. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways. In other words, we are not as likely to change when we see the light as when we feel the heat! Why? Because we change only when the fear of change is exceeded by our pain.”

Now that gives us a totally different perspective on our circumstances and pain doesn’t it?


Yes, yes!
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