For a person like me, whose personality tends towards the perfectionist, control freak, over-achieving end of the spectrum, a title like You can change is music to my sinful ears. It appeals to my sinful self-reliance and my tendency to view myself as a project that I work on to impress others. My instinct, when I see something that is less than perfect, is generally to take things in hand and fix the problem. I kind of already do believe I can change.As I said, it's a very dangerous book for me.
Which is why chapter 2 was good for me. In this chapter, Tim Chester asks the question: 'Why would you like to change?'. It's disturbing, as I reflect on my motives, to realise how much I am still a little driven by wanting to prove to myself that I can change and to impress others. I suspect that one of the reasons why I can be so indulgent of my anxious thoughts is because anxiety is such an invisible thing (unless I blog about it!!). Changing the outward things is often easier, and gets a better pay-off in how I look to others.
Chester writes:
We want to justify ourselves - to demonstrate we're worthy of God or respectable
in the eyes of other people. But we're justified through faith in what
Christ has done. When you feel the desire to prove yourself,
remember you're right with God in Christ. You can't do anything to make
yourself more acceptable to God than you already are. You don't need to
worry about whether people are impressed by you becaue you're already justified
or vindicated by God. And what makes you feel good is not what you've
done, but what Christ has done for you. You're identity isn't dependent on
your change. You're a child of the heavenly king.
4 comments:
I loved that chapter too, for similar reasons. My reason for changing, Chester helped me to see, is too often to prove myself to me, others or God. I'm grateful to God that Chester helped to see this so clearly.
Yes, I think we have very similar personalities Jean (and therefore similar strengths and weaknesses!).
That was so awkward for me to read... it spoke exactly into my biggest weakness area. Its easy to tell yourself that your motive was different to what it really was. This is another book to add to my reading list. Thanks for sharing and also for your honesty Nicole.
I'll follow the general pattern here...
I too found this post described me very well. I so often get into patterns of self-improvement, forgetting the true Improver/Redeemer, without whose help I will never improve. I'm often not even thinking of Him in my efforts to improve, rather those I will impress by my better skills/temperament. It is yet another form of self-justification, which is idolatry - believing something other than God can save me.
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