Do You Need A Change? Read More to Find Out How.

Sometimes change is a good thing.  Sometimes change is a bad thing.   Change isn't always what we want to see.  If someone has just started taking drugs it can become aparant by a change of look, change of behavior, change of grades...and these things go from good to bad.  Often when people are under stress the first thing they will do is try to find a joint, a pill or a drink.  It is because they feel like they need a change.  They want to be free of the things that are bothering them, and the drugs will change thier perceptions, change thier feelings, and change their thought and attitudes.  It is like a releif from the grief that they are carrying through life.   The world will try to  change you, but God will do so much more than that. 

If you will let him, God will not only change you, but he will transform you.  What's the difference?  A butterfly doesn't just change from a worm to a butterfly, the worm actually transforms.  It comes out a completely new creature.  Narcotics may be able to change the way you feel about life, but, narcotics cannot transform you.  When the drugs or alchohol wear off you are still facing the same inner disatisfaction that you had before you began taking them.   God doesn't just change you, he will actually transform you. 

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual^a act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12: 1-2

When we accept Jesus as Savior we are transformed at that time.  After I surrendered my life to God, the desires that I had changed, the habits I had changed, the things I desired to do were different.  I had been transformed into a person with different desires than what I had before.  But, it doesn't stop there at salvation.  God wants to transform us everyday, and renew us in the faith.   In the verses above we are told to no longer conform to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. 

 Your mind will either make you or break you.  What is going on in your mind?  We can get our minds all out of whack.  We get angry, HOW?  We think on things that make us angry, often times it is things we can do nothing about.   We get worried, HOW?  We think on things that make us worry ourselves to death, and then we wonder why we feel dead inside.  We get UPSET and FEARFUL.  WhY?  We put images before our mind and in our thoughts that get us all upset and afraid, and then we wonder why our blood pressure is through the roof.   You can get yourself in a state where you are acting after the pattern of this world by churning things over and over and over and over and over and over in your mind.  That is how the world does things.  We shouldn't pattern our lives after the pattern of the world, but after the things of God.

17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect^a the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  2 Cor. 3: 17-18

And what exactly are we free from?  We are free from worry, free from fear, free from stress, free from anxiety.  As a Christian, you only have to carry these things if you chose to do so.  When you transform your mind with the renewing of God's word you chose to let Jesus carry your worries, your fears, your stress, and you anxieties.  Transforming your mind with the renewing of his word doesn't mean just simply reading the bible, it means letting the Word of God be on the thoughts of you mind all day instead of that other junk that makes you so upset all the time.  If you are truly living by His Spirit you will be free to live, not bound up in mental anguish, anger and fears.  We are being tansformed into his likeness.  God is asking you to trust him today.  Let him renew your mind, and leave behind those things that upset you and make  you want to go get a drink.  Let him place himself and his word in your mind and his peace will transform your life.