Welcome to How to Change and Grow

Welcome to How to Change and Grow. The answers to life is found in seeking the Creater of life. We serve a good God. He wants to help us. God's Word guides and directs our steps while the Holy Sprit empowers us to transform, mature, prosper and more. The fullness of God's love brings us to beyond striving, to satisfying all our needs and anything we could ever hope or wish for. God's way IS a better way! God bless you as you learn HIS WAYS to change and grow.

April 24, 2012

Approaching Truth

Our attitude towards truth makes all the difference in the world in terms of its results in our lives. Here are some stances that can best maximize the healing, growing effects of truth:

Love truth: When people begin to see the value and understand that truth can improve, preserve, and save their lives, it is easy to love it. When you love something or someone, you pursue them because you want to be around them. There are two types of people who struggle in learning to love truth: those who have experienced harsh criticism, or those who have been hurt by inconsistent truth. These people are not sure that truth is to help them or to punish them. Truth is the self-expression of God, and God is full of grace (love and forgiveness) and truth. Loving truths from God and others helps those who have been hurt by harsh and inconsistent truth.

Endure the pain of truth: Truth is often hurtful and uncomfortable. Just like the surgeon’s knife, its healing power comes with pain. It is a most important and valuable task for all who seek to grow spiritually to learn to tolerate the discomfort of the truth, in light of its great power to help us. Here are a few of the painful experiences associated with the truth: facing the reality of our failings, living life God’s way instead of how we would like to live it, loving others when we are aware of their imperfections, having truthful conversations with people we love and care for, holding onto values and what is important to us when others judge us wrongly, and learning new ways that are not easy or natural for us in which to conduct or relationships.

Love helps the pain: The more we internalize love, the more truth we can take in. Love gives us the ability to tolerate difficult realities. Well-loved people can face their souls without becoming deeply discouraged. They have been rooted and grounded in love (see Ephesians 3:17). You will often find that over time the truths people work with are darker than those with which they started. For example, many people who start spiritual growth begin with an external crisis such as financial difficulties, health issues, divorce or other relational problems. It may look as if the person is innocent and is simply the unfortunate recipient of bad times or bad people. Yet, as they become connected, taught in God’s ways, and strengthened and do the work of growth, they take ownership of their part of the crisis and learn to solve it. The crisis goes away, but the growth doesn’t stop. We look inward, where there is more work to be done. Initially the truth that was too difficult to bear becomes the stuff of growth.

Be sensitive to truth and untruth: The more a person takes a stance towards truthfulness, the more discerning he or she becomes about truth or untruth. God designed for us to live in reality. As we immerse our lives in this, we see more and more clearly what is truth and what is not true. Darkness and light become more distinct from each other (see John 1:5). You do not have to be afraid of the truth, even when it hurts. Seek reality and become a person of the truth.

Be receptive to all styles of truth: People learn and grow in different ways. Some people understand logical truth more easily, while others do better with intuition. Truth is truth no matter where you find it. It is important to be receptive of all types of reality. This gives God and the process more freedom to work within us.

April 18, 2012

Truth for Growth

Truth is a giver of life, is your friend, and helps you grow. There are different types of truth that we need to grow because people have different needs, issues, and struggles. Truth plays several roles in how it is applied to our lives in the following ways:

Clarification: Clarification of the source of issues helps us to understand which ones is our fault, which are the result of someone else’s sin, and which are the result of living in a broken world. If we have a pattern of going along with opinions and wishes of others instead of being truthful, then the struggle is our fault. On the other hand, the issue may be the result of the inability to stand up for the truth in relationships that developed in other significant setting, such as a family of origin (sin from others). Then there are things that happen like the loss of supportive friends due to relocating because of a job loss (sin in the world). Clarification shows us resolutions to particular growth issues.

Comfort: Comfort is the emotional supply we receive from God and others and then pass on to those who need it to bear the pains of life. Comforting words can bring us through many trials and help us grow. Comfort brings relief, consolation, and freedom from pain and anxiety. When someone understands our pain and struggle at a deep level and can communicate that understanding to us, we are comforted.

Correction: People need to be confronted with truth when they stray from God’s path of righteousness. Use caution when using correction; used improperly can seriously wound people. Some people do not possess enough love to handle the truth. For example, a person can easily become discouraged from his or her faith in God when they are corrected without kindness. This is truth without grace. The goal of correction is restore and build up someone up, and not tear them down. Loving correction is always having the other person’s best interest.

Guidance: Sometimes the truth gives us a direction to take in our growth and life. We often stumble through life, not knowing how to operate in relationships, in work, in faith, or even how to guard our hearts. Some guiding truths are general principles that apply universally to all, such as the law of empathy for others (Luke 6:31) or the principle of seeking God’s kingdom first (Matthew 6:33). Many complicated life issues can be unraveled when we look to see how these principles apply. In other cases, God provides individual and specific guidance, such as the leading of the Holy Spirit, a passage from the Bible that applies to our situation, or the advice of a trusted friend. Guiding truths are very helpful when we faced with uncertainty and difficult decisions.

Illumination: We need insight and wisdom for our inner lives. God brings all sorts of truth to help us see how to best handle life. A dark part of our lives may need to be exposed and matured. Or we may be ignorant of an issue that needs to be looked at. At times, illumination is simply part of the learning process, such as found in a good Bible study. At other times, it is what is called an emotionally corrective experience, when a person has a flash of insight on what is driving a problem.

Are you open to the process of dealing with painful truths about yourself and to receive insights and perspectives from other safe people?

April 11, 2012

Grace and Truth

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Grace and truth together: Grace and truth are designed by God to work together. Relationship requires a structure. Grace provides us with mercy and forgiveness, taking us out of isolation and back into relationship with God and others. If we are “being transformed into His likeness” (see 2 Corinthians 3:18) then we are taking on the character and nature of God. Grace lays the foundation giving us the ability to give love and receive love. The truth of God’s Word sets us free through all knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Grace alone is license and truth by its self is legalism, and somewhere in the middle we can find freedom and liberty when the two are in balance, working together. By themselves, they are extremes. Together there is relationship and connection with knowledge and understanding.

Grace without truth: Sometimes we divide love from truth. This is a problem, as they were never intended to be split up. Our love must be honest, and our truth must be for the other person’s best. While grace provides love and acceptance, grace without truth is license. “You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:13). Grace has no limit; however grace without truth prevents us from growing because without truth, we do not feel the effects or consequences of our wrongdoing. Grace without truth does not prevent us from falling into the same old traps or patterns, making the same mistakes over and over again. Grace alone does not provide us with the direction and structure for which to grow.

Truth without grace: Truth by its self, campaigns against injustice but condemns the sin and the sinner because truth without grace is judgment. When love is separated from truth, people cannot grow. Truth by its self has no relational aspects and lacks love, joy, compassion, patience, kindness, gentleness, and understanding. Where there is no grace, the law restricts us; “I will only love you if you do what I say”. It silences us, brings anger, puts us under a curse, and holds us prisoner. “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation (grace) through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Thessalonians 5:9). The law is legalism. The law is a restriction that makes us fail: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). The law increases sin: “The law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20). The law brings death: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). The law points us to Jesus because He offers us the plan of redemption, which is grace. But we are unable to live under the law; we need grace. Truth is the law, the commandments, and standards to live up to. No one can grow under the law without grace, because by itself, it alienates us from Christ: “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

Learn to receive truth and to give truth graciously and humbly. How have you felt the effect from truth without grace?

April 2, 2012

Truth by Design

Truth is from God: The Bible uses the word truth to describe different aspects of reality as well as what is true in general. The most basic way to understand truth is that truth is what is. Truth is reality and what exists. If it does not exist, it is not true. Truth is the reality God has designed, created, and defined, and over which He rules. Truth is the self-expression of God. Truth lives and breathes in the very essence of God.

Truth is structure: Truth frames and shapes all of creation. In the beginning, God laid the foundation of the earth (Psalm 102:25, Hebrews 1:10). The Church is the pillar and foundation of truth (1Timothy 3:15). God’s solid foundation stands firm. Truth provides structure, direction, and integrity. “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Truth is a framework and gives us guidance of how to live our lives. Truth is necessary for growing up in the image of God. As we passionately seek truth in our “inner being”, we learn to hate what He hates and loves what He loves.

Truth is relational: We are to not just know truth, we are to experience it. Believing or knowing the truth is a process of understanding who God is and how we relate to Him and others. God is called “the God of truth” (Psalm 31:5). Jesus calls himself the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). The Holy Spirit is also called the truth (1John 5:6). This illustrates the deeply personal and relational nature of truth. Since truth is part of God’s nature and because we are made in His image, truth is a deep part of the heart and who we are: “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place” (Psalm 51:6). Truth is more than a set of facts and rules. Truth not only points out our wrong and corrects us; it brings relational healing as well, because truth is a person who lovingly cares for us. Our tendency is to hide the “unsafe” parts of us that are undeveloped. The heart is deceitful but truth reveals the motive behind the action, attitude, and feeling. Truth brings awareness. It exposes us for what we really are. The truth we believe leads to change and growth in our relationship with God.

Truth is the path of life: To change, grow, and mature, people need a guide, and a light to follow: “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me, let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell” (Psalm 43:3). Truth enables the grower to develop and complete the steps that cultivates maturity, discipline, responsibility and stability. Truth provides guidance of how to live our lives. Truth defines what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is not good. Truth is a necessary for growing up in the image of God. Truth leads us to God: “I am the way, and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Truth is the path of life: “I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws” (Psalm 119:30). Without Godly wisdom and understanding, our knowledge or what we think and feel is limited to our experience and that shapes our perceptions, opinions and attitudes.

Spiritual growth is the result of practicing the truth you receive from God. He wants you to give away what He gives you--that is, by loving and serving others and sharing the truth of the gospel. Examine your preconceptions about truth. Do you experience truth as critical and condemning? Renew your approach to truth as a design by God, path of life, and as your friend.