God’s Strength Transforms Us
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any long to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will. -- Romans 12:1-2
One of the greatest misconceptions we have about ourselves is we can do anything we truly want to do all by ourselves. We call it willpower. And determination. We are confident in our own abilities.
We can stop eating anytime we want. Same with drinking. Or getting so angry that we yell and scream at our families, friends and coworkers. We can stop cursing, smoking or spending money any time we want. If we want.
Funny thing about all that confidence and determination. It just never seems to be in evidence when we need it most.
Because we really aren’t as strong as we’d like to think. We really can’t do everything through sheer determination. And we really do tend to fall down, to fall back, no matter how hard we try not to.
We need help. All of us do. And there is God just waiting to help us. But He won’t do anything until we ask Him to intervene and until we are ready to submit our lives to Him.
I know. None of us mean to let our lives get out of control. But all those things we’ve always done have developed into habits that seem to control us instead of the other way around.
It’s easy to develop bad habits. Some of them are inherited. Maybe everyone in our family has a bad temper. But that doesn’t excuse our sin when we let loose on someone. We know it’s a problem and, with God’s help, we can learn to control our temper one day at a time.
Another way we develop bad habits is by how we are raised. Maybe we overeat because everyone in our family overeats. We don’t know any other way. Doesn’t everyone eat three or four huge slices of chocolate cake a day?
We also make bad choices when we’re trying to fill ourselves up with something we aren’t getting anywhere else. We’ve never felt loved, so we try to buy love by giving lavish gifts we can’t afford on people we want to like us. Or we grew up in a really poor family so we spend all our waking hours working, even if it means our spouses and children never really get to see us and know us.
But we can change. Not through willpower or determination but through God. His strength is sufficient for all our needs. We can ask Him to help us take one step forward, then another. We can seek strength this day for whatever we need. God’s strength, not our own.
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