Transformation not determination

I think that if you don’t read Christian books, watch and or listen to other Christian pastors and attend Christian conferences you limit your opportunity to learn more about God and how to grow closer to and become like Christ. And this is what God wants for us.

Much of your growth can come from hearing stories of what others have overcome and how God has worked in their lives and knowing that you are not the only one dealing with these issues.

I believe becoming a stronger and more mature Christian requires more than just attending church on Sundays. It requires you to make a greater effort to seek God.

The excerpt below from the book ‘Man Alive’ by Pat Morley can help you in this quest.

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From the section titled ‘It starts with the heart’ – p32 - 33

Christianity is heart transformation not behavior modification. The reason that 90% of men lead lukewarm, often defeated lives is really quite simple. They’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Most of us have the idea that Christianity is about behavior modification – using determination to change our behavior and be more spiritual. We think that if we can just get the right information, if we can just have more willpower and ‘man up’ then we will do the right things and everything will be ok.

But everything is not okay. In fact the harder we try the more frustrated and confused we become. A man can only will himself to act and perform like a Christian for so long. One man who abandoned his faith said, ‘I served in the church for twenty years and I got worn out. I decided to try something else.’ Determination, we all learn eventually, is not a strategy.

How does heart transformation happen in practice? If we were to ask Pete (Morley’s younger brother referred to previously), what would he say? He would tell us that his heart was transformed when he stopped trying to go it alone and dug into God’s word with a group of guys who accepted him “as is”. He would tell us that he didn’t really do anything. He simply presented himself to God as a flawed vessel, looking intently into God’s Word in the company of a few men who cared about each other, and God changed the way he thinks.  

That really is the story of transformation. It happens from the inside out as we build our faith with each other. Everything starts with the heart. Jesus put it this way:

‘The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart,

 and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.
For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks’ (Luke 6:45, NIV)

Authentic faith really is about the heart. Of course, Christianity is also about behavior, but its behavior that overflows from changing what we believe in our hearts. Belief determines behavior. You could think of it like this:

Right reading leads to

Right thinking and that leads to
Right believing and that leads to
Right behaving