No one likes to change. When we think about change, certain sayings come to mind: “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” These sayings are not very encouraging. Remember, lasting change is a process, not an event. It takes time, effort, and perseverance. But if you are willing to work, God will help you make lasting changes.
Table of Contents
As Christians, God wants to make us more like Jesus, but the enemy wants us to believe it is too hard. How does change happen? It requires more than just the motivation to do something differently. There are seven steps to creating a lasting change as a Christian.
Step 1: Change Your Prayer
Whether we want to change a bad habit, like breaking an addiction, or creating a healthier lifestyle, like getting in shape, we should start everything with prayer as Christians. Perhaps we may feel as if we have prayed before, and if that is the case, we may need to look very carefully at our prayers. Sometimes, we pray a half-hearted prayer. Our Heavenly Father knows our hearts, and He waits until we turn to Him with sincere devotion.
But when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.
2 Chronicles 15:4 KJV
Sincere, authentic, heartfelt prayer only occurs after we exhaust our ability and come to God humbly, understanding that He is our only answer. When we reach this point, we admit to God that we are powerless without Him and begin praying from a different place. Sometimes, we must reach a breaking point and line up our desires with Kingdom purposes.
Step 2: Change Your Thoughts
How we think of a situation will guide our actions. Our thoughts are significant, so we must get our minds in line with God before we can create lasting change in our lives. For example, if we think our bad habit is not a big deal, we will justify it rather than condemn it. If our thoughts are not right, we may continue to make allowances for sin, and we will not be adequately motivated to create lasting change.
The Bible tells us to renew our minds and transform our thinking. We must stop judging our thoughts and actions by society’s view of right and wrong and align our ideas with God’s Word. In other words, we must bring our beliefs and acts in line with how Christ would see them. To view our deeds as Christ will cause us to quit excusing, rationalizing, and justifying our actions and makes us willing to follow God’s path to deliverance and healing.
Before becoming Christians, we lived our lives doing whatever felt good, or we thought was okay, but we should strive to live our lives differently as Christians. Through the Holy Spirit, we gain the mind of Christ, and we learn to think about what Jesus would do in each situation.
Step 3: Change Your Spiritual Diet
To make lasting life changes, we must change our spiritual diet and consume a “faith-filled diet.” We must focus on activities that build our faith and avoid those that do not. Praying, fasting, reading our Bible, attending church, and singing praises to God are all activities we should be consuming and partaking in.
As we get closer to God, we gain strength and faith, but if we surround ourselves with negative people and actions that do not bring glory to God, we can begin to go backward. The enemy will attempt to convince us to stay where we are. He will make sin seem alluring as he wants to inhibit our change.
To end bad habits, we must be careful about who and where we spend our time. We must strive to feed hope and faith and starve negativity and feelings of hopelessness.
Step 4: Change Your Commitment
When we are ready to make lasting changes, we can not just hope and believe that change will come; we must act in faith. God will open the door to allow us to make lasting changes, but it will usually require action from us. We all have separate journeys, and we must pay attention to how God sends our deliverance and obey God’s instruction.
Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.
Proverbs 4:13 NIV
We have to commit to action if we want lasting changes. God will help us eliminate procrastination and excuses as long as we start and become intentional in our quest for change. God may encourage us to go to a treatment center, start a cessation program, join a gym, join a support group, or quit something cold turkey. God may show us how to achieve our goals by sending someone to help us, but we will typically have to do our part as He helps.
Step 5: Change How You Fail
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we slip. The enemy wants us to fail and then quit trying to succeed, but God wants to send grace and forgiveness. We must change the way we die. Rather than make a mistake and give up trying, we must see failure as an opportunity to ask God for more help.
God wants us to repent and try again. We must be willing to keep trying by becoming relentless and determined to see lasting change. As we sincerely ask for forgiveness, our Father will be faithful in forgiving and helping us when we pray.
Step 6: Change Your Ability To See The Enemy’s Tricks
When we are on the right track, and because we are so close to our breakthrough, the enemy will cause us to lose focus. We must be able to see temptation before it causes us an issue. The enemy will do anything to throw us off track, so we must be ready by clinging to our faith.
The enemy has many tricks, but he tries to tempt us to go backward by making us lose focus on why we want to change. He tries to convince us not to create lasting change by showing us someone who seems worse in our eyes so that we may return to seeing our sins or issues as “not so bad.”
Looking around at others to compare ourselves to others can lead to us becoming judgmental, and God does not want us to do that. The enemy will cause us to notice others’ flaws while we ignore our weaknesses (Matthew 7:1-5 KJV). We have to resist focusing on anyone else but ourselves. The only one we want to be like is Jesus.
The enemy may also try to tempt us to return to a bad situation by convincing us that we are strong enough to handle the temptation. He will tell us things like “just once” or “just a little.” The enemy wants us to feel that we no longer need God’s help and to handle things independently. We must be careful and watchful.
Step 7: Change Your Ability to Wait
Lasting change takes time. Living a Christian life, we strive to become more like Jesus. We must expect that making a lasting change will take time. We go from glory to glory, meaning we continue to grow in God, and this transformation is not instant. We must never stop becoming more like Jesus. The Christian life is a journey that will take a lifetime to master. We must be willing to grow, change, and yield to God’s plan and purpose.
A Prayer To Make A Lasting Change
Lasting change starts with prayer and ends with patience. Change is possible with faith regardless of the giant or issues we face. The process may not be simple and requires us to become determined, relentless, and committed. Let’s pray together.
I’m starting my new season with God and Y’shuah as my focus, thank you for posting this!
Repentance, is such a ‘bible word’, when I was resisting it, however the word really means ‘to change your mind’. The ‘change your thoughts’ section really hit me for how to focus.
Thanks for letting me know that you enjoyed this post. It means a lot. I strive to write as He instructs, but believe me I am learning too. We start again every morning with new mercies thanks to our merciful God. We must have faith and trust that God is good and He wants to forgive and help us get it right. Only the enemy wins when we forego repentance. Keep fighting the good fight! Be blessed.
Pingback: What To Do When Life Is Falling Apart?
Great post Krystal. Change is not easy but necessary. And asking God for help is the only way to real results.
If it didn’t come through the Lord then it isn’t for me. I am making some changes in my life right now and it is scary.
I trust in God and His plan. And I shall wait for God’s timing.
I am also in the middle of change. God is faithful and he sends His word to help us through. Sending prayers and asking God to bless you. Thank you so much for blessing me with your encouraging comments. We are on a journey together.