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Make The Change
"This year I’m going to…” How many times have you told yourself that in the last several weeks? What’s your plan for doing whatever it is you’d like to do? How are you going to make sure you actually follow through?
Most of the time, we know something needs to change, but we don’t put a lot of effort into the “how.” We know something needs to be done, we spend a lot of time thinking about what it is we’d like to do, and then we make a mental or verbal agreement with ourselves. Something like, “This time I’m going to…” But, we spend comparatively little time thinking about the “how.” How is this going to get done? What will I do when I encounter obstacles? Why is this even a problem in the first place—how did I get here?
Jesus knows this. In our Scripture for this morning, He even names it: “…the flesh is no help at all.” (John 6:63b). When it comes to spiritual things, Jesus knows we can’t really do anything on our own. We need something bigger than us to deal with ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit: “It is the Spirit who gives life…” (John 6:63a). The Spirit helps us tackle the “how”—the power we need to change. If it’s up to us only, we will fail at some point. We’ll cave into our desires, we’ll allow someone to talk us out of it, we’ll tell ourselves “I need a break just this once” and we’ll go back.
The Holy Spirit gives us power to say, “NO.” He is the “How” to our “This year I’m going to…” The question is, will you give Him authority in your life by submitting to Him? Will you lay down your “do it yourself” mentality and give yourself over to the Spirit in guiding your life? If not, you’ll fall right back in, and 2021 will look just like 2020. Thank God there’s another way!
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:11
-Scott McFarland
