One of the verses almost every believer I know likes to quote is Romans 8:28. It says;
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
The real question is;
“What is the good that God is causing all things to work together for?”
To really understand that question we need to understand what exactly is God wanting to do with me and my life? Is His purpose to make me Happy or Holy? Does He want me to enjoy prosperity and comfort or is there something far more important than living the American Dream?
What I would define as “my good” is probably not what God has in mind. So, what the “good” that God really wants my life to be about? We discover that in the next verse – Romans 8:29;
“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to
become conformed to the image of His Son…”
God loved you and chose you before the creation of the world. He led us to Jesus and gave us the faith to believe and receive Him as our Savior. He has placed His Spirit inside of our bodies to help us through this difficult life and He will take us to heaven when we die. And it is between the time He saves us till the time He glorifies us that His mission is to use everything in this life … the good, the bad and the ugly …
…to conform us to the image of His Son!!!
In other words … to make us like Jesus. Since Jesus was God in the flesh He became a man to show us what a person without a sinful nature could be like. Not to make us like Him in the way He looked … that would be weird. But to change us into people who would act, think, and speak as He did.
That is what a disciple did in Jesus’s day. They literally followed their leader around listening and learning from them so that they could be a representative of their leader. So that, when the leader is away or gone a disciple of that leader, would represent them.
Our government operates this way … or is supposed to. We have the House of Representatives which has 435 members who are supposed to be there to represent the people of the area of the country in which their voters live. The Senate has 2 people from each state to represent the people of their state.
As a disciple or a follower of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us is to change us or transform us more into being like Jesus in our thoughts, words, and deeds. He wants to conform us into the image of Jesus. That is His goal and purpose for our lives and that is what He says He will do with everything that happens in our lives.
His purpose is not to make us happy and for life to be easy so that we are feeling good. No, He wants to conform us into become more like Jesus. Sometimes there are good times when things are going well. Sometimes there are bad or difficult things that happen to us and He will use those things to make us more like Jesus … if we let them do that.
And that is the role of the Holy Spirit. He is in you to change you. He is in you to transform you. We were all dead in our sins, and He has made us alive in Christ. There are old things from our past, ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that were part of our selfish and rebellious nature that we still see in us.
The Spirit wants to change those things. Those things have been harmful to us and those around us. They are old patterns of thinking and acting that have hurt us and our loved ones. Sexual sin is but one example of many activities and ways of thinking from our past that need to be changed.
The good news is that with time those changes can happen. We can be conformed to the image of Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit. It takes being filled with the Spirit and walking in the Spirit every day. He is in us and He is waiting every day for us to invite Him to take control of us.
As we ask Him to fill us every day and we walk with Him, allowing Him to guide us in our thoughts, words, and deeds that He slowly is transforming us into more godly and holy people.
He wants you to stop sinning sexually even more than you do. He is committed to that 24/7/365. But He does not force it on you. It has to be you making it a decision every day to be filled with and walking in the Spirit. His transformation comes a little bit at a time so please remember …
Recovery is Not Perfection … It is Making Progress
And
Recovery is Not a Procedure … It is a Process
Let’s all be filled with the Spirit and walk with Jesus today!