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LIFE CHANGE

Psalm 50:16-21 “But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting My decrees and pretending to obey My covenant? For you refuse My discipline and treat My words like trash. When you see thieves, you approve of them, and you spend your time with adulterers. Your mouth is filled with wickedness, and your tongue is full of lies. You sit around and slander your brother— your own mother’s son. While you did all this, I remained silent, and you thought I was exactly like you. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you.”

There is a religious moralism practiced by some who claim to belong to God. They think that their worship and offerings are somehow doing God a favor. The idea held here is that by living a moral and ethical life, our religious observance puts God in our debt. The truth is, however, that what God gives us in Christ Jesus is a gift. It is all about grace and God’s power given to us to repent in honesty and humility, recognizing we are utterly dependent upon God for our salvation from start to finish.

The flipside of the same religious coin is being doctrinally correct in what is professed to be believed, but without life change. God defines such persons as “wicked”. You can read your Bible through and through multiple times, attend worship services regularly and profess an orthodox faith, but if your life doesn’t change, something is wrong. Your actions reveal that you hate God’s instructions and cast His Word behind your back. It’s not that you don’t believe that God exists, He just doesn’t matter if His Word contradicts your will and passions. The truth is that no one who is truly saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus will fail to live a changed life by the power of the Holy Spirit living within them.

The Lord Jesus meets us where we are when He saves us and brings us into His Kingdom. But He doesn’t leave us there. He doesn’t let us continue to compartmentalize our lives; He changes us. Our lives begin to be lived in love for and in reference to the Lord in all things. Submitting yourself to the Holy Spirit for Him to do in you all that God desires for you will mean life change, conforming you to the image and likeness of Jesus. If you find yourself resisting God’s clear Word, you need to stop and let the Holy Spirit remove the idols from your heart.

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