MICHAEL SPOTTS:.

Overcoming Despair About Personal Change

If our only hope of personal change was to let time and nature do their work, we might lose hope that ourselves and others would ever be brought to faith or holiness. Yet one of the deepest works of personal transformation to ever occur was that which happened within Saul on the road to Damascus, and this was accomplished in an instant by the Spirit. [Acts 9, 22] One moment Saul viewed Jesus as his enemy. Then a light appeared from heaven and a voice spoke, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” As the bitter Pharisee beheld the fearful glory of the Son, a more mysterious light suddenly appeared within his heart—faith, the gift of God. Now in a moment he believed Jesus was his greatest benefactor, for having died to reconcile him, an enemy of God, to the Father at the cross. The greatest change imaginable happened in the twinkling of an eye, when a spiritually dead man was resurrected by God through new birth into spiritual life.

However, the subsequent work of being completely conformed to the character of Christ, that ongoing work of persevering in faith unto love, even the indefatigable Paul admitted to never having attained in this life. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” [Phil. 3:12] Knowing the difficulty which lay ahead, he set his eyes on things above and marched uphill with faithful resolve. “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” [Phil. 3:14] Impatience leads to frustration and despair, especially in matters of moral weakness and poor relationships, and so we are told to, “let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” [James 1:4] 

In the face of personal deficiencies and the faults of others, we must never forget the epistles are themselves populated with dysfunctional communities of struggling saints, competing powers, and divided brethren. The tenor of the apostle’s teaching to the churches is not to expect heaven on earth in this life, but to constantly realign ourselves to recognize all saints for who we are in Christ, rather than judging according to natural circumstances and differences. The message of Christian growth is not to expect paradise in our circumstances, but to rest in the sufficiency of Jesus to bring us home, with whom we are already as good as seated in heaven. “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” [Eph. 2:4-6]