The Change Within

How are you different today compared to ten years ago? If you could sit across from yourself ten years ago, what would surprise you most about who you’ve become?

I’m not talking about your waistline or your knees, though I understand if that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I mean the deep stuff. Your desires. Your conversations. What keeps you up at night. What gets you out of bed in the morning. Who you love and how you love them. What you can’t get enough of. What you’ve walked away from. What you can’t walk away from.

How have you changed?

I know a young guy who has been working two full-time jobs for a while. He has no margin, no rest, barely present as a dad or a friend or family member. He keeps telling himself it’s temporary. Once he hits that next thing, then life will open up. Then it’ll all be worth it. I’ve known him for over twenty years, and for twenty years he’s been chasing the same thing. He still hasn’t caught it. Work is thriving, everything else is paying for it.

I understand the drive. I used to live there too.

But here’s what I’ve learned: you can hustle your whole life and still come up empty if what you’re building on is wrong.

I watched a real change in the Apostle Peter today.

Before the resurrection, Peter was all energy and no direction. He rebuked Jesus for talking about the cross (Mark 8:32 NCV). He pulled a sword in the garden to stop the arrest (John 18:10 NCV). Then, hours later, he denied ever knowing Jesus. Three times. Standing around a fire while his Lord was on trial.

The cross didn’t just confuse Peter. It broke him and deeply changed him. What change has it had on you - and me?

With Peter a change occurred that could never have been manufactured on his own.

Acts 2 records the first sermon Peter ever preached after Pentecost. He stood before thousands, no sword, no denial, no running. Just clarity and courage. He declared, “Jesus was given to you, and with the help of those who don’t know the law, you put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But this was God’s plan which he had made long ago; he knew all this would happen. God raised Jesus from the dead and set him free from the pain of death, because death could not hold him” (Acts 2:23-24 NCV).

That’s not the same man.

What changed Peter wasn’t more information or more willpower. It was the Holy Spirit. Jesus had promised, “But when the Holy Spirit comes to you, you will receive power. You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8 NCV). And it happened exactly like that. The fearful man became courageous. The cross that once made no sense became the only thing Peter wanted to talk about.

I’ll share something personal with you.

I can’t prove GOD to you the way you’d prove a math equation. Even though I think creation and design is enough. But one thing I can show you is my life. And my life is evidence, I didn’t change it. I couldn’t change it. I tried. GOD changed it, Christ changed it, the Holy Spirit changed it.

In my younger years, I’d never be writing this to you. Now, I cannot stop reading the Bible, I crave it, I want to understand it and share it and I want others to experience what I’ve experienced. The psalmist wrote, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103 NCV). That used to sound like religious poetry to me. Now it just sounds true.

My prayers have changed. What I love has changed. How I love has changed. Sometimes I barely recognize myself, and I don’t say that to point at me. I say it because I can’t explain it any other way. It just changed. I can’t really take the credit.

Paul described what’s happening: “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord who is the Spirit makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NCV). That’s not instant. That’s not a one-time event. That’s a lifetime of being reshaped from the inside out.

And I still don’t fully understand why GOD would love me enough to pick me. But He did.

So here’s a practical question worth sitting with: what direction is your life actually moving? Not your goals, your direction. Are you becoming more patient, more loving, do you love differently, do you love different things, are you more forgiving, more concerned about others than yourself?

Because Paul wrote, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23 NCV). That’s the evidence of the Holy Spirit working in a life, not a perfect life, but one that is moving toward God and loving Him with all you have and loving others as yourself. Is that happening to you?

If that’s not happening, more discipline won’t fix it. More Bible knowledge won’t produce it on its own. What you need isn’t information, you need the One who changes people from the inside. “For God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13 NCV).

That young man I mentioned, the one working himself to death, I pray for him. Not that his business fails, but that his desires change. That he discovers what he’s actually looking for can’t be built. It can only be received by God, by giving his life to Jesus Christ.

The same goes for you and me.

Do you want to become who GOD created you to be? Not a polished version of your current self, but something genuinely new? That work belongs to the Holy Spirit. All you have to do is ask Him. Tell Him you’re tired of the same old version of yourself. Tell Him you want more, tell Him you’re ready for a change that you couldn’t pull off on your own.

That’s where it starts and I’ll promise you won’t believe where it leads.

GOD, thank You for choosing me, forgiving me, and changing me when I couldn’t change myself. Keep working. Give me deeper love for You and greater love for people. Let the HOLY SPIRIT keep transforming me from the inside out, until the day I see You face to face. IJNIP amen ♥️

(My 96 year old Aunt Bonnie - just visited her)