Pinned from: Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Speaking freely about your sins and “mistakes” and confessing them to others doesn’t make you a spiritual giant. Being able to admit when you’re wrong and humbly owning your weaknesses is not enough! The real work is in the quiet commitment to change and be changed. It is in the persistent pursuit of God’s grace to be different – and then actually becoming different.
I am daily inundated with images, quotes and platitudes of others talking about “not being perfect….don’t judge me…it’s so hard for me to get humble…I’m only human….I’m a “real” addict and this is why I behave this way”…blah blah blah. What they are really saying through all the posts, long winded shares and cheesy praise music is that they are not really willing to change.
Real change does not occur when you’ve stopped feeling guilty for your mistakes or because you have finally decided to humble yourself and accept that you have “pride”. How big of you! Umm no sorry! REAL change occurs when you become willing to change. Simple as that.
In the quiet stillness you make a powerful, quiet – committed, no fanfare decision to be willing to go to any length to change. And you know what happens? You don’t keep posting things on Facebook that try to manipulate people to not “judge” you. You don’t keep taking 1 step forward and then 5 steps back. You don’t run away when people challenge you. You stop hiding in retreats/conventions/speaker tapes. You stop being satisfied in what you think is spiritual and begin to actively put into practice what you are taught. You actually change.
I know that a lot of you won’t want to hear this. You want to blame it on being emotionally immature, or on not knowing “how” to change. You want to drag the people who are actually able to walk in righteousness down and make them your equals. You want to spend hours upon hours soaking in your self pity and talking endlessly about how God loves you just the way you are.
One of the best things anyone ever said to me was that yes God loved me exactly as I was…but that He refused to let me stay that way!
Make no mistake about it. The reason why you haven’t changed much is simply because you are not really willing to change. You think you are. But if you were – trust me, you’d be different. But you’re not. And some part of you knows it.
Quietly committing to change, quietly staying humble and taking direction without a weekly rebellious uprising is genuine willingness.
You are free to stay sick, to wallow in your self-indulgent emotionalism that you try to peddle as religious experience, you are more than welcome to stay in the maze of your ego – but I won’t ever co-sign your suicide pact. Because that’s what it is. All of your games, your double mindedness, your attempts to take our inventory (lol), they are all easily seen through as feeble attempts to distance yourself from your own inability to be honest with yourself. Because if you were honest with yourself you would see that you don’t really want to change and that you are the author of most of your confusion and futility. That would be a very scary and terrible place to be so I understand the great lengths you go to try and avoid it – but the great news is that God will meet you there. I guarantee you this – He will not meet you anywhere else, and no real solid, Holy Spirit powered change will ever occur in you without it.
By the way, if you think this is about you – then it probably is. Who else would it be about?
Recovered In Christ 
Me me me!!! lol!! I am so happy to say that this is me!! The best thing that ever happened to me was seeing the worst in me. It was like a coming home party. God welcomed me with open arms. I see what you mean though – it took me a long time to stop playing games thinking I was getting humble – far from it though. I didn’t change until I actually started doing things differently. That’s how I knew God was really at work in me – there was real change in me.
Thank you for my morning spiritual ass kicking…I’m definitely awake now! 😉
Me too Grace – looking back I wasted a lot of people’s time carrying on about myself and if anyone saw through that I would accuse them of being harsh or too judgmental, when the truth was I just wasn’t ready for real recovery and real spirituality. I actually thought that crying on my couch listening to gospel music and painting scripture on my walls – while cringing and hating people telling me what I didn’t want to hear was actually considered “willingness” – ya right!!! I couldn’t even commit to showing up to my home group consistently and yet I was offended that I wasn’t asked to lead it!!! But for the grace of God I would still be in that mindset.
This has been true in my life. There is so much power in the ability to stop blaming. Once you realize that you haven’t really been “willing to change” you can always then simply choose to be willing…it is liberating knowing that the only real hindrance to your progress and your success is you! But we must be ready to change – you can’t ask God to change you when you have no intention of being changed. This is why step 6 is before step 7
Step 6 – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
Step 7 – Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings
Excellent post! I am so sick and tired of all the stuff I hear all day long about how hard it is to change. No it isn’t. It’s actually impossible to change without grace. And grace is only given to change to those who are wholly willing to receive it. So if you’re struggling to change, you’re not there yet. Don’t get me wrong – I am not suggesting there is never any “struggle” against sin…or that there is never any backsliding or flip flopping. There is. But you actually have to get somewhere first before you can “backslide” and the majority of what I see from those who continuously struggle is no change at all.
It is incredible to me – the saturation level of garbage that people accept as willingness!! And if you don’t go along with it you’re accused of being “harsh” or mean. NO! There is a radical difference between making mistakes and progressing slowly versus simply doing whatever the heck you want with a perpetually hard heart and thinking that you’re “changing”.
The biggest problem I see is not that crazy people behave and think in crazy ways…they are crazy, so I get it. What stumps me are all the believers, teachers, mentors, sponsors etc. that refuse to challenge this. Where are our Spurgeon’s and Wesley’s? Few and far in between I tell you.
Thank you for not letting the fire go out Ms. Nadda. God bless you!
Awesome post Layla. Great stuff!
This is great! It makes so much sense. So much of what we attribute to “powerlessness” is actually unwillingness. One of the gifts in my life is when I was no longer satisfied with my excuses or my progress. I became sick and tired of my own immature desires and inconsistenies. Thank you Father.
This is spot on Layla. Yes yes yes a million yes’s!!! Forget about the problems of “watered” down program, the even sicker problems I’ve seen are all the men and women who profess to be “Christian” that are so unteachable and then wonder why they are so ineffective and want to blame it all on being “persecuted”. I met some women in London who seemed more interested in going out to parties and clubs followed by self aggrandizing “prayer” groups…it honestly made me sick. I am not trying to pick on anyone either, I really am just needing some support, can you point me in the right direction? Thanks.
I hear you Brenda – I think I may have met the same people in London?!! LOL!! In all seriousness though – it isn’t just a “London” problem, or in our case a “Toronto” problem. Truth is – it’s a heart problem. As I have met people who have had a lot more odds stacked against them and they were doing a lot of things “wrong” under a lot of deception – yet they have made it through beautifully, and are maturing, growing and getting rock solid in wisdom and effectiveness as members of the one body of Christ. The reason is because in their heart of hearts they were seeking truth, and are willing to pay the price – the destruction of self centeredness – from which comes the pettiness…sickness…jealousy…”self aggrandizing prayer groups” etc. So many people want the benefits and the idea of a relationship with Christ, without actively, consciously and honestly putting to death their self-centeredness.
…send me an email and I will put you in touch with some solid mature believers you can connect with. They run a couple of things in London, they’d be more than happy to talk with you, and I will connect you with a couple of churches you can check out that I trust. my email is Layla.Nadda@hotmail.com
THANK you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is something that needs to be talked about much more often. How often do we hear a multitude of excuses, pandering and outright hostile attacks towards anything resembling a genuine call to self examination. It can get quite unnerving for those who are susceptible to having the “tables turned on them”…some poor sick soul who starts pointing the finger at them saying “you shouldn’t judge me” or “everyone sins” or “focus on your own mistakes” and the susceptible person falls for it and shrinks into themselves or worse – allows the blanket of sin and darkness to encroach on their own progress.
Thanks for this excellent post. God bless
Awesome!! I love this!
So simple but so true. It’s not any more complicated than this…you will change when you change. It sounds like an oversimplification. But it isn’t.
Yes Lord change me!! Change the hidden hardness of my heart! I’m ready!
Thank God for good teachers. Thank you God for changing our hearts!