Ask yourself are you a fraud?: THE HOLY SPIRIT IS CHANGING ME

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS CHANGING ME

Becoming Like Christ Through the Daily Surrender of My Heart

There is a truth about every one of us that our pride does not particularly enjoy confronting: none of us has arrived.

Not one of us is perfect.

There is only One who walked this earth in absolute perfection, and His name is Jesus Christ.

I can preach. I can pray. I can minister. I can understand Scripture. I can experience the presence of God and witness extraordinary things happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. But none of those things mean that every corner of my heart has already been transformed into the likeness of Christ.

The Christian life is not merely about receiving Christ into my heart.

It is about Christ progressively taking possession of my heart.

When I surrendered my life to Jesus, something decisive happened. I was forgiven. I was reconciled to God. I became His. But from that moment forward, the Holy Spirit began another work within me: transformation.

And sometimes that transformation happens dramatically.

Sometimes God confronts something within me, and almost immediately I know that I cannot continue living the way I have lived.

Other times the work is slower.

Layer after layer is removed.

Attitudes are exposed.

Motives are uncovered.

Reactions I once justified become increasingly uncomfortable.

Words I once spoke without thinking suddenly trouble my conscience.

Things I once blamed on my personality begin to look very different when I compare them with the character of Jesus.

And I have come to understand that this discomfort can itself become evidence that the Holy Spirit is working.

There are things I used to excuse that I can no longer excuse comfortably.

There are conversations I can no longer walk away from without asking myself whether my words represented Christ.

There are moments when I recognize that although I may have been technically correct, I was not gentle.

There are situations where I realize that I defended truth but failed to demonstrate love.

And suddenly the question is no longer simply:

“Was I right?”

The deeper question becomes:

“Did I look like Jesus?”

That question has become increasingly important to me.

Every morning when I wake up, one of the greatest priorities of my life must be the examination of my own heart.

Not somebody else’s heart.

Mine.

Lord, what is happening inside me?

What is controlling my reactions?

What is motivating my decisions?

How am I treating people?

What happens inside me when somebody disagrees with me?

What happens when somebody disappoints me?

What happens when someone misunderstands me?

What happens when I am tired, inconvenienced, overlooked, corrected, criticized or rejected?

Because it is often in those moments that the condition of my heart becomes visible.

Galatians 5 tells me that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

And what strikes me about that list is how relational it is.

Love requires somebody to love.

Patience requires something to endure.

Kindness requires somebody toward whom kindness can be demonstrated.

Gentleness becomes meaningful precisely when I possess the ability to be harsh.

Self-control becomes visible when another response is available to me.

So I cannot simply measure spiritual maturity by what happens when I am alone with God.

Eventually my spirituality must survive contact with people.

It must survive disagreement.

It must survive disappointment.

It must survive frustration.

It must survive the person who irritates me.

It must survive the moment when I do not get my way.

It must survive criticism.

It must survive pressure.

It must survive exhaustion.

Because the fruit of the Spirit is not decoration hanging on the Christian life.

It is evidence of the life of Christ being formed within me.

And that formation begins with surrender.

Not once.

Daily.

There are things that I have to continually place upon the altar before God.

My desires.

My ambitions.

My abilities.

My reputation.

My need to be understood.

My need to defend myself.

My expectations of other people.

My preferred outcomes.

My right to have the final word.

Even my natural strengths must be surrendered to God.

Because an unsurrendered strength can become just as destructive as an unsurrendered weakness.

I may be naturally decisive, but without the Spirit my decisiveness can become control.

I may be courageous, but courage without gentleness can become aggression.

I may possess discernment, but discernment without love can become suspicion.

I may be a strong leader, but leadership without surrender can become domination.

I may be able to speak truth powerfully, but truth without love can wound the very people God intended me to restore.

Everything must come under the lordship of Jesus.

Nothing receives an exemption because I call it my personality.

I cannot say, “That is simply the way I am,” when the Holy Spirit says, “But that is not the way Christ is.”

That is where transformation becomes uncomfortable.

Because Jesus does not merely come to improve the version of me that already exists.

He comes to conform me to His image.

And sometimes the first evidence of that transformation is that my defenses begin to weaken.

Galatians 2 gives me one of the most sobering examples of this reality.

Peter knew Jesus personally.

Peter saw miracles.

Peter walked on water.

Peter witnessed the transfiguration.

Peter saw the risen Christ.

Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost.

Thousands responded to his message.

And yet Peter still needed correction.

At Antioch, Peter had been eating freely with Gentile believers. But when certain men arrived, fear influenced his behavior. He withdrew from the Gentiles, and others followed his example.

Paul confronted him.

Think about that.

A man who had experienced extraordinary revelation still carried an area in which fear could influence his behavior.

Spiritual experiences had not made Peter incapable of inconsistency.

And if that was true of Peter, then I should never become offended when God exposes inconsistency in me.

I should become grateful.

Because exposure is not rejection.

Conviction is not abandonment.

Correction is not evidence that God has finished with me.

Often correction is evidence that He loves me too much to leave me unchanged.

One of the greatest signs of spiritual maturity is therefore not that I never need correction.

It is that I increasingly know what to do when correction comes.

Will I defend myself?

Will I explain myself?

Will I shift responsibility?

Will I remind everyone of my intentions?

Will I immediately point out what somebody else did wrong?

Or can I become quiet enough before God to ask:

“Lord, is there truth in this that You want me to hear?”

That is surrender.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing I can do is apologize.

Not:

“I am sorry if you were offended.”

Not:

“I am sorry, but you need to understand why I did it.”

Not:

“I am sorry, but you hurt me too.”

Simply:

“I was wrong.”

“I should not have spoken to you that way.”

“I did not represent Christ well.”

“Please forgive me.”

There is tremendous spiritual power in a believer who no longer needs to control the story.

Because pride needs to win the argument.

Humility wants truth.

Pride wants vindication.

Humility wants transformation.

Pride says, “Let me explain.”

The surrendered heart says, “Lord, let me see.”

But I must also understand the difference between conviction and condemnation.

Romans 8:1 declares that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The Holy Spirit reveals sin, but He does not invite me into endless self-hatred.

He brings conviction so that repentance can lead to freedom.

The enemy says:

“You failed again. This proves you will never change.”

The Holy Spirit says:

“This is not who I am forming you to become. Bring it to Me.”

There is an enormous difference.

Condemnation drives me away from God.

Conviction draws me toward Him.

Condemnation makes me hide.

Conviction makes me surrender.

And this is why becoming more aware of weakness does not necessarily mean that I am becoming weaker.

Sometimes I am simply seeing more clearly.

There may have been a time when I could speak harshly and never think about it again.

Now I speak harshly and cannot find peace until I make it right.

Something has changed.

There may have been a time when resentment could live inside me for months while I justified every ounce of it.

Now the Holy Spirit begins troubling me before bitterness has even found a comfortable chair inside my heart.

Something has changed.

There may have been a time when I could gossip and call it concern.

Now my spirit becomes uncomfortable before the sentence even leaves my mouth.

Something has changed.

The transformation may not yet be complete.

But fruit is beginning to appear.

And fruit often grows slowly.

Nobody walks into an orchard and stares at an apple for an hour expecting to visibly watch it grow.

Growth becomes apparent over time.

The same is true spiritually.

There may not be one dramatic moment where I suddenly realize:

“I am now more patient.”

But months later somebody may notice that I do not react the way I once reacted.

The people around me may recognize something before I do.

My family may discover that disagreement no longer produces punishment.

My friends may discover that they can tell me difficult things without fearing an explosion.

Those who work alongside me may discover that I listen more than I once did.

Someone who disappoints me may encounter gentleness where they once would have encountered anger.

That is fruit.

And the fruit of the Spirit is ultimately for somebody else to taste.

That is one of the reasons I must be careful about measuring spiritual maturity only by what happens on a platform.

The anointing can operate publicly while character is still being formed privately.

Giftedness is not the same thing as maturity.

A spiritual gift can affect thousands.

But the fruit of the Spirit determines what the person standing directly in front of me experiences.

Can people taste love around me?

Can they encounter peace?

Do they experience patience?

Do my words carry kindness?

Am I faithful?

Can people trust my word?

Am I gentle with weakness?

Do I possess self-control?

These questions penetrate much deeper than asking whether I preached well.

I want something more than anointing.

I want resemblance.

I want Christ to be visible.

Acts 10 gives us another extraordinary picture of transformation.

Peter receives a vision that begins dismantling assumptions he has carried for years. God sends him into the house of Cornelius, a Gentile.

Peter enters a space he once would have avoided.

He preaches Christ.

And while he is still speaking, the Holy Spirit falls upon those Gentiles.

God acts in such a way that Peter must enlarge his understanding.

This challenges me deeply.

Because sometimes transformation involves God confronting the narrowness of my world.

Who have I dismissed?

Who have I categorized?

Who have I quietly decided is beneath my attention?

Whose history have I allowed to become their permanent identity in my mind?

Who makes me uncomfortable?

Who cannot advance my reputation and therefore receives less of my attention?

The more Christ forms Himself within me, the more I should begin seeing people through His eyes.

That does not mean abandoning discernment.

Love is not naivety.

Grace does not require me to tolerate abuse.

Healthy boundaries can be deeply biblical.

But I must ask myself whether my boundary exists to protect what is healthy or whether I have simply baptized contempt with spiritual language.

Jesus knew how to confront.

Jesus knew how to withdraw.

Jesus knew how to say no.

Jesus knew when not to entrust Himself to people.

Yet the heart of Christ remained pure.

That is the standard.

Not endless availability.

Not people-pleasing.

Christlikeness.

And there is another place where I increasingly recognize the Spirit’s transforming work: prayer.

Romans 8 tells me that the Spirit helps me in my weakness.

There are moments when I do not even know how to pray as I ought.

That once might have frightened me.

Perhaps I thought maturity meant always knowing what to say.

Always having confidence.

Always understanding what God was doing.

But sometimes growth looks like having fewer speeches before God.

Sometimes I simply come and say:

“Father, I do not understand.”

“I am disappointed.”

“I am tired.”

“I want this situation to change.”

“I am afraid.”

“I do not know what You are doing.”

“But I still belong to You.”

There is something profoundly powerful about honest dependence.

I no longer have to perform spirituality before the One who already knows everything inside me.

There is a difference between losing prayer and losing the performance I once brought into prayer.

Sometimes surrender sounds like:

“Lord, this is what I want, but I trust You more than I trust what I want.”

That is not weakness.

That is maturity.

John 15 brings everything back to one beautiful picture.

Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches.

The branch does not manufacture life.

It receives life by remaining connected to the vine.

“Abide in Me.”

That is the secret.

I cannot transform myself through human determination.

I cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit through personality modification.

I cannot become Christlike through sheer willpower.

My responsibility is surrender, obedience and abiding.

His life produces the fruit.

But abiding is not passive.

If His words remain in me, they begin governing my choices.

If I remain in Him, obedience begins touching ordinary moments.

I answer patiently when I am exhausted.

I keep my commitment when nobody would know if I broke it.

I refuse to repeat information that would damage someone.

I resist the temptation to make myself look important at another person’s expense.

I listen instead of preparing my defense.

I choose kindness when irritation feels easier.

I ask for help when an old temptation returns.

I walk away from something that feeds my flesh.

I return to somebody I have hurt.

These decisions may never become testimony material.

Nobody may applaud them.

But heaven sees the surrender.

This is why every day I want to place my heart before the Holy Spirit.

Not in unhealthy introspection.

Not in obsessive self-accusation.

But in honest surrender.

“Search me, O God.”

Where am I still resisting You?

Where am I easily offended?

Where does pride still speak?

Where am I withholding forgiveness?

Where am I using spiritual language to disguise insecurity?

Where am I demanding from others something that You never demanded from me?

Where am I trying to control outcomes instead of trusting You?

Where am I still treating people in ways that contradict the Christ I preach?

These are dangerous prayers.

But they are glorious prayers.

Because I do not want merely to carry a message about Jesus.

I want to become a message about Jesus.

I do not want only my sermons to tell people what Christ is like.

I want my responses to tell them.

My patience.

My kindness.

My faithfulness.

My gentleness.

My willingness to repent.

My willingness to listen.

My willingness to surrender.

There is a brutal truth about me.

I am not perfect.

But there is also a glorious truth.

The Holy Spirit has not finished with me.

So I refuse both pride and despair.

I will not pretend that I have arrived.

And I will not condemn myself because I have not.

I will bring every inadequacy back to God.

Every weakness.

Every contradiction.

Every unsurrendered place.

Every recurring struggle.

And I will say:

“Holy Spirit, transform this too.”

I will not protect something simply because it has been part of me for forty years.

If it does not look like Jesus, it can go.

I will not defend something simply because people around me have learned to tolerate it.

If it does not carry the fruit of the Spirit, I want it confronted.

I will not call anger passion.

I will not call control leadership.

I will not call harshness boldness.

I will not call pride discernment.

I will not call avoidance peace.

I will not call people-pleasing love.

I want truth.

Because transformation begins wherever surrender becomes real.

Tomorrow morning, I will awaken again.

I will still be unfinished.

But I will also still be His.

And once again I can place my heart before Him.

“Jesus, make me look like You.”

Not just publicly.

Privately.

Not merely when I preach.

When I am tired.

Not only when people agree with me.

When they oppose me.

Not only when someone honors me.

When they misunderstand me.

Not only when I feel spiritual.

In the ordinary hours of an ordinary day.

That is where transformation becomes visible.

Perhaps I will not notice every change.

Perhaps I will not know the day patience took deeper root.

Perhaps I will not recognize the precise moment my need to defend myself began losing its grip.

But maybe somebody around me will breathe easier.

Maybe someone will receive kindness where they expected anger.

Maybe someone will hear an apology I once could never have given.

Maybe somebody who feels invisible will realize that I actually saw them.

Maybe someone will encounter the gentleness of Jesus through the way I respond.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest evidences that the Holy Spirit is truly transforming me.

Not that I have become impressive.

But that Jesus has become increasingly visible.

So I remain in the Vine.

I surrender again.

I repent quickly.

I forgive freely.

I receive correction.

I choose obedience.

I guard my heart.

I examine my fruit.

And I continue believing that the Holy Spirit is accomplishing what I could never accomplish by myself.

Christ is being formed in me.

And until the day I stand before Him, my prayer remains the same:

Holy Spirit, do not stop.

Expose what must be exposed.

Heal what must be healed.

Break what must be broken.

Correct what must be corrected.

Remove what does not resemble Jesus.

Strengthen what does.

And let the life of Christ become so visible in me that the people who encounter my life encounter something of Him.

That is transformation.

That is surrender.

That is the life I want.

Peter Nash