Only those serious about sustained change will prosper in reading this article. It has nothing for anyone else. Trouble is, we all reckon we’re serious about change — until the action starts.
The heart of true change always comes from the heart, the right insight and motivation. And true change is only possible when we admit we’re going wrong.
Admitting we’re going wrong in any detail of our lives demonstrates an attitude of humility, but attitudes are useless — mere and genuine frustrations — without true commitment to action. Motivation that fuels change occurs when we’re finally sick and tired about being sick and tired (living in a lie).
Recently, I noticed a better chance of success for myself in an area I’d struggled with for many years. I think my rates of success with change are about one-in-twenty. Once in twenty times I get it right because the rest of the time I only have an attitude of humility about where I’m going wrong — my heart isn’t humble. The problem is true motivation — which is always about the true heart behind change.
When we don’t truly believe we are going wrong, we aren’t truly motivated to change. We may think we believe we’re going wrong but we don’t truly believe it because the heart of change always links belief with action.
Belief grounded in action is faith.
Motivation underpins faith to act right based on true hope.
The reason I think most if not all of us struggle with change is converting that attitude to action — being true of heart. Another way of thinking about it is this:
Action requires a heart committed
for behaving differently
over a sustained period of time.
Christians have a definite advantage when it comes to increased chances that true change will stick. They are at least in theory more prepared to admit the true issue is a matter of the right (or wrong) heart.
The heart of true change is about
change toward a true heart.
If a person wants to be a better person, they cannot get better unless they face what is wrong with their heart. If we are ambitious, selfish, greedy, unkind, lazy, lustful, etc, it always starts with the heart.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting wrongness of heart. Perhaps it’s the only right thing we can do. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (17:9) stated this truth powerfully if only we’d accept it, and change:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” The next verse answers the question… only God can understand it. Verse 10 says, “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
Our conduct, sustained over a greater portion of time, which reflects our true heart, is what God judges, and this is evident in the way life works, more or less. Our true heart is judged. Not what we pretend to think, say, or do — as if we could fool God.
If our heart covets nothing but doing the right thing, all ways, we will be rewarded — if not in this life, in the next. That is always the test of a true heart.
A true heart never seeks reward.
Ironically, that’s the only heart God can reward.
“Can I accept that I may not get my reward until I see God in eternity?”
If only we can reconcile this, our motivation will always be right, because revelation has convicted us at the level of our insight.
We must truly be prepared, as Jim Eliot said, to lose everything we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose — and that right there is the abundant spiritual life Jesus promised to every believer. But we must be prepared to lose our life to gain it.
It all starts in the heart. If we had hearts that always saw right and were always committed to doing right, we would always do right with the same attitude. But we don’t. This is a liberating truth two ways. First, there’s no need to feel ashamed or annoyed; we all struggle with the same thing — if we can admit it. Second, the key to change stands right there before us.
We can repent of the corruptness of heart,
and move in a life-giving direction of change.
Evidence that we have moved is blessing not so much in our own lives, but more through us into others’ lives. Being genuinely other-oriented is evidence of the right heart. We can seek such a heart but only God can change hearts. True change, therefore, is a matter of prayer with the right heart.
