God's Power to Change Your Life (Living with Purpose)

GOD’S LOVE First, before we can love others, we must feel and understand how deeply God loves us. Ephesians 3:17 – 18 says, “I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God

God Uses Circumstances God’s ideal way of changing us is to have us read the Bible to find out how we should live and then depend on his indwelling Spirit to enable us to do it. Unfortunately, most of us are stubborn, and we don’t change that easily. So God brings in a third tool to work on us — circumstances. Problems, pressures, heartaches, diffi

To work out means to cultivate, to make the most of what you have been given. That is what Paul says here: Cultivate your spiritual life!

We talk as if love is uncontrollable, but the Bible says love is controllable. In fact, Jesus commands that we love others. His words indicate that we do have control over whom we love and whom we do not love.

Here is a key truth: God produces the fruit of the Spirit in us by allowing us to encounter situations and people with characteristics that are exactly the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit.

It is one thing for me to tell you that Jesus Christ can cancel your past, help you conquer the problems you are facing right now, and change your personality. But it is quite another matter for you to overcome inertia and actually let him begin to do it now! Although you may agree with everything I say, you may still wait and let Jesus help you “o

The Bible also says that love is a matter of conduct. Love is something we do — an action, not a feeling. The apostle John expressed it this way: “Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does” (6:7 – 8).

Ask him to help you respond to difficult people and unpleasant situations as Jesus would. God wants to produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Will you cooperate with him in that life-changing process?

God is quite specific in telling us what to think about. Philippians 4:8 says we are to ponder eight different categories of things and, by implication, to avoid thinking about the opposite kinds of things.