As we progress in the Christian life, we begin to notice certain sinful areas of our life that we can’t seem to conquer. We all have our own weaknesses and no matter how hard we try, we continue to fail. We may be able to control our surface behavior most of the time, but inside we still feel the impulse to sin. Our efforts to change are failing.
Earlier in our Christian life, we were able to overcome many of our sins just by actively resisting temptation and receiving God’s strength through the Scripture, prayer, and friends. But now we realize our sins are powered by deep desires, attitudes, and beliefs we can’t control or change. And our own special areas of weakness are constantly reminding us of this. They are a spotlight on our old nature.
Rejoice! Now we are discovering the end of ourselves. We have come to the end of the character God has given us so far. We are at the limits of how much we can change ourselves by actively participating with God. With respect to our deeper weaknesses we do not have the power to “change ourselves” anymore. Our deepest desires and attitudes need to change, but we are not equipped to do this. If we try, we are like a person trying to use a shovel to dig for oil thousands of feet underground. Only God has the spiritual power to change us deep inside. Only he can dig down and do the actual work required. We need to focus more on receiving than doing.
He needs to show us our deeper faults so we can let go of our old ways. Perhaps we have deep-seated fears that cause us to try to control people around us. Perhaps we never fully forgave someone who deeply harmed us. Perhaps we have roots of pride that block our humility before God. We need God to reveal these to us so we can address them and cooperate with God as he purges them from us.
We need to go through a big change in the way we view spiritual growth. We will learn that deeper growth only comes when we are much less active in changing ourselves and instead take a more passive, humble posture before God and let Him do the change—without our power. Now we can learn to surrender more fully; we can tell him we can’t do it and ask him to reveal our deep issues and guide us to overcoming them.
