How Do I Change?

And [he] should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. (Mark 4:27, brackets added)This verse says that the seed grows up on its own, and the farmer doesn’t understand how. Isn’t that awesome?I don’t understand how this works, but it does. I can personally testify to you that this truly works. If you would just put God’s Word in your heart by reading it, meditating on it, thinking about it, and trying to conform your emotions, thoughts, and actions to it, the seed will grow up on its own. I don’t know how it does that, but change comes.In fact, my teaching entitled Effortless Change deals with this truth in greater detail than I’m able to do here. And I know that this idea of change being effortless sounds like an oxymoron. How can a person experience effortless change? For most people, change comes with great difficulty and effort, especially in the Christian life. Christians often view change as involving strenuous labor. However, that’s because they aren’t going about it God’s way.God’s method of change, maturity, growth, and victory in your life involves taking the Word of God, which is the seed of all change, and sowing it in your heart consistently over a period of time. And when you follow God’s method, making it your very lifestyle, the Word just produces change, and you don’t know how it happens.

Beginning to Panic

While listening to another minister share during a recording of a conference, I heard this man speak about some of the different hardships and hiccups he’d been through. It just made me feel so blessed! I’ve avoided a lot of the problems that many people go through. Now, I’m not saying this to my credit. It wasn’t because of me or something great I had done. It’s just God! By placing an importance on God’s Word, knowing Him, and learning what His Word says, God has changed my life effortlessly.If I were to go back and try to relive the last fifty years on my own wisdom, I wouldn’t have a chance of doing things as well as they have been done. It’s not because I figured this stuff out. It’s because I’ve stayed in relationship with God, and I’ve stayed in His Word. God’s Word has changed my attitude, my emotions, and my thoughts. That’s how this works.When I first got turned on to the Lord, I had a miraculous encounter with Him on March 23, 1968. I came to experience His love. It was an emotional experience that revolutionized my life and turned me right side up. But the emotion could not have carried me through these past fifty years. The emotion jump-started me and dramatically got my attention, but what really changed my life was God’s Word.After the emotion of that experience began to wane, and even though I’d been reading and studying the Word, I realized that I hadn’t really made the Word as important as it should have been. I was eighteen or nineteen years old and still living at home with my mother. I’d been reading the Bible, so it was lying open on the bed one day as I knelt down and prayed. I said, “Oh God, I feel like the emotion of what You’ve done in my life is wearing off.” Beginning to panic, I said, “Lord, I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose my love for You!” I knew that God had great things in store for my life, but I had no idea how to get there from where I was. So, I asked Him, “Lord, how do I get there from here?” It looked like such a huge distance to cover. “God, what do I do? How do I do this? How do I retain these things?”When I opened my eyes, which had been closed, it was like—boom—there was the Bible. In my heart, I heard the Lord say, If you will just put the importance and priority on knowing My Word, studying My Word, and meditating in My Word, then My Word will do everything that you need. It wasn’t an audible voice, but rather something I just heard on the inside of me. Yet I took it just as if God had spoken it to me in an audible voice.

Hunger

So, I began to spend as many as sixteen and sometimes twenty hours a day just reading and reading, studying and studying, meditating and meditating, and trying to live by the Word. Here I am, five decades later, and I can truthfully tell you that God’s Word has taught me and has done everything that I’ve needed.You might be feeling desperate right now, just like I was. You’re not sure how to get from where you are to where you believe God wants to you be, and it seems like it’s such a major effort. You’re asking, “How do I change? How do I do this?” I’m giving you my personal testimony. It’s God’s Word! Just like Mark 4:27 says, it just springs and grows up of itself. You don’t have to understand it.I don’t understand it. I couldn’t go back and outline my life and tell you why all of these things work. However, I can tell you one key thing: I have spent fifty years seeking God and meditating in His Word day and night. Because of my schedule now, I don’t spend as much time as I used to in the Word, but I’m still meditating on it constantly. I listen to audio teachings whenever I can. I still have a hunger just to read God’s Word.A while back I spent one entire day, maybe ten hours or more, just sitting and reading God’s Word. I had some other things I wanted to do, but I just got so excited reading the Word that I couldn’t put it down. Here I am, fifty years later, and I’m still doing it. I’ve read these things hundreds, even thousands, of times. I feel like the prophet who declared, “God’s Word burns on the inside of me!” (Jer. 20:9). It excites me.If I start getting discouraged, worried, or full of care about something, all I have to do is go to the scriptures that talk about the faithfulness of God and how He has provided for me. I read them, and it’s just like fire. It comes in and burns up all the worry, care, and frustration.

It’s Working

You might be thinking, You’re weird, Andrew. This is weird. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. The Word of God doesn’t burn on the inside of me. Well, I’m telling you that it can, and it should. If it doesn’t, it’s not because God doesn’t want it to be that way for you, but because you haven’t placed the proper priority and importance on it yet.The Holy Spirit is a wonderful teacher, but you have to show up for class. You have to walk into the classroom, sit down, and pay attention to what He’s saying. What good is it to have the Holy Spirit as your teacher if you never go to school? The Word of God is intended to be like fire shut up in your bones. It’s supposed to bring forth change in your life. God created the Word, and that’s what the Word is for.

The Holy Spirit is a wonderful teacher, but you have to show up for class.

Jesus appeared in his resurrection body and walked to Emmaus with two of His disciples, but they didn’t recognize Him at first (Luke 24). Jesus expounded the Scriptures to them, and they finally realized who He was when He blessed the bread at supper. He vanished out of their sight, and they said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32). That’s the way it’s supposed to be.But the Word won’t affect you like that or change you if it just sits on your coffee table. You can’t lay the Bible on top of your head and receive fire, victory, faith, and power. You must read, meditate, and start conforming your thoughts and actions to it. You have to let the Word become the dominant force in your life. You can’t just grab one of the little cards out of your Daily Bread box as you walk out the door—reading one verse a day, a week, or whatever—and think that you’re in the Word. It’s going to take some time. You’re going to have to put some effort into it. But just as Mark 4:27 says, “The seed should spring and grow up.” You don’t know how, but it works. That’s awesome! I enjoy that to this day, even though I still don’t understand everything.There are certain times when I just kind of hit a dead end. I try this, and pursue that, but nothing works. I seek the Lord and ask Him about it, but I may not even be sure how to pray. Do you know what I do in a situation like that? I just sit down with my Bible and start reading. I begin worshiping God, loving on Him, and asking Him to speak to me. It isn’t long before the Lord says something to me that directly applies to my situation.This is how God moves in my life. I know I’m not a perfect example, but it’s working. And this is how it works for me. You might be saying, “I wish it would work for me the way you’re describing.” It can if you will give the same effort to it that I’ve given. You need to take God’s Word, plant it in your heart, and let it stay there. Don’t dig it up. If you live out God’s Word by conforming your life to it, God’s Word will work for you. The Word is never the problem. It’s us not putting God’s Word into our hearts that’s the problem.