NEED CHANGE?

Romans 12:2
Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. (NLT)

Every group of people tends to become alike over time. Take a bunch of children and send them to a private school and most of them will turn out being similar in many ways. The same can be said about people attending the same church over a number of years. Even people who work together for a long time pick up each other's traits and habits.

When you spend time with a very negative person, you can easily end up thinking in a similar way. Instead of looking on the bright side, you see the dark places instead. We are influenced by what we associate with and that could be people, books, movies, and television programming.

Last night we watched a movie and my dreams were influenced by what I let in. It was a fair flick even though very dumb and kept us in stitches throughout. Did it influence my way of thinking or change the way I will react to situations in life. No, it will not, but it did have an effect on some level as evidenced by my dreams.

No matter how good the teaching is at church or how great the last Christian author 's book was it does not transform us into a new person. It does add to our bank of intellectual knowledge and affect us on different levels. We may make different conscience decisions as a result of what we have learned.

True change, change that alters the way we think occurs when we let the Holy Spirit change us from the inside out. When that occurs, we no longer have to think about our reactions. They occur differently because our character has changed to be more Christ like.

Have you given the Holy Spirit permission to change you?