How can you change? (1 Kin 13-14; 2 Chr 12; Ps 47; Titus 2)

We’re just over half way through the year, a good time to remember any New Year resolutions you made! How did you get on? Why is change so hard? Why do we keep making the same mistakes?

In Titus 2, Paul tells us the secret to self-controlled, godly lives. The secret is not found in yourself, that’s where we often go wrong, we think if I just try really hard, then I’ll change. But more often than not, we fail.

What then is the secret? Paul tells us it’s about where we look. We are to look in two directions, backwards and forwards! First we are to look back at the grace of God which appeared in Jesus (Titus 2:11). How does this help us change? I spent years as a teenager struggling with alcohol, ever since my mum died I found it to be a release, a pain reliever. I knew getting drunk was wrong, and I often regretted the things I did, but no matter how much I may have resolved to change, I couldn’t. I just could not do it in my own strength. What helped more than anything was seeing through grace of God in Jesus Christ. I knew the way I had lived was offensive to God, and when I saw that Jesus loved me so much that He would die to take the punishment I deserved, it changed everything! Something changed in me that meant I wanted to live a new life and I discovered God gave me the power to say no to ungodliness. Seeing that Jesus had set me free from the penalty of sin, and was setting me free from the power of sin enabled me to begin to live a self-controlled life. If you want to change, stop looking at yourself, and begin looking to Jesus Christ, the one who loved you and gave himself for you.

The second way to look is forwards. We look back to Jesus first coming with gratitude, and we look forward to His return with eager expectation (Titus 2:13). We long for that day that Jesus returns and takes away all pain, and all temptation, and frees us from the very presence of sin. We long for that day when we will actually see the one who loved us and gave himself for us. The more we look to that day, the more we will want to live lives that are pleasing to Him.

So if you want to change, don’t look to yourself, but look in two directions, look back at Christ’s first coming, see His love, His forgiveness, see what it cost him, then look forward to the day He will return, how wonderful it will be!