Don’t Settle for Less! God’s Path to Achieving Your True Potential

I’ve run across a number of good, solid, capable people who have resigned themselves to their life being the way it is with no hope of change.

Often these people can tell you what they wanted to be or dreamed about being in life. They started out with great aspirations about who they wanted to be and the things they wanted to accomplish in life.

But when they’re asked if they accomplished their dreams, with a sad look they proceed to tell why they couldn’t get it done. They offer multiple reasons why it is now too late to achieve those dreams. Many of them will refer to personal circumstances, economic or political conditions, social viewpoints, family upbringing, or religious beliefs as reasons why they didn’t do better in life. They didn’t know to look to God’s promises to keep their hope alive until they had the opportunity to live their dream.

Many of them got busy working a job year after year to provide for their family. Others lost their ability to believe they could do anything other than what they’re doing. Making too many mistakes, missing an opportunity, or having to go to work to pay bills are real issues that people face in life. It is true that our mistakes, missed opportunities, repeated failures, accidents, or being ripped off by someone may temporarily kick our dreams and goals off the playing field of life. But we have to realize that doesn’t have to be the end of our story. If we’ll follow God, He is able help us recover and create circumstances that give us another chance at our dreams or to do something even better.

God Has Given Us the Key

God has told us in His Word what to do if we want to experience our dreams and fulfill God’s plan for our lives. The world may give us every reason why it isn’t possible to obey God or achieve what we feel is our assignment in life. However, what God told us to do is very simple: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2 NKJV).

The idea presented here is that when we renew our mind with God’s Word, a transformation will happen inside of us. This transformation is necessary so we have the right outlook in life as we negotiate the circumstances and situations of life until we reach our goal. Changing our mind to think the way God wants us to think will position us to achieve God’s plans for our lives.

Our society has given us an interesting but somewhat misleading expectation about the word transformation. Some of the movies today depict superheroes who give us a modern-day image of the word transform, by which a mere human can be instantly transformed into a mighty superhero wearing a bodysuit with a cape who masters every circumstance and every foe. We all love the idea of our lives being suddenly transformed so that we could live the life we always wanted to live.

Our world today focuses on having everything as instant as possible. Fast food restaurants, convenience stores, instant cash machines, and multi-lane highways all affirm our “instant mentality.” For some people, a major crisis occurs when they can’t find the remote control for the television, they can’t instantly flip to the channel they want to watch, or they can’t set it up to watch multiple channels at one time. But the word transform indicates a very specific way in which change occurs in the human soul.

Transforming Our Soul

The word for “transformed” in the Greek is the word metamorphoo. It’s the same Greek word from which our English word metamorphosis is derived. It means to undergo a complete change of form or the process of constructing something into a different shape. Biologically, it indicates a process of change over a period of time, as in the process whereby a caterpillar changes into a cocoon and then into a beautiful butterfly. It takes time for this change to take place. It doesn’t happen instantaneously, or even overnight.

This is what happens as we start the renewal process of daily reading the Word of God and letting the Holy Spirit do His work in us. When we become a Christian, our mind is like an ugly caterpillar, predominantly filled with the ugly, carnal thoughts of the world and the flesh. Our mind must go through the process of metamorphosis to become a beautiful butterfly that expresses the beauty and purposes of God found in Scripture. We are then capable of going to the high places in life for which we were created. However, this takes time to happen.

Soulish things change through a process over a period of time, which is why we need to hear the same information over and over again. We need the continual “washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26 NKJV) to cleanse our mind from harmful thoughts, ideas, imaginations, and memories. This brings out the value of daily devotions in the Word of God, which cleanse our minds of the things of the world and fill our minds with thoughts of God’s Word. Continually thinking thoughts from the Word of God allows us to rise up into new realms of living we’ve never before experienced.

Deal With the Old and the New

Early in the ministry of Jeremiah, God reveals a process to him: “See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10 NKJV). Both negative and positive events take place to complete the process of change so that we can move to higher realms of living. Notice the things that are mentioned: 1) to root out, 2) to pull down, 3) to destroy, 4) to throw down, 5) to plant, and 6) to build.

Many people play “dodgeball” with potentially negative situations to try to maintain peace of mind. They try to ignore their problems or will not admit to the negative conditions that may be present. But often it is necessary to root out, pull down, destroy, and throw down things from within of our soul as well as successfully planting and building the things we want there. We cannot move up to new levels of life with old things hanging on us. If we attempt to do so, these old things will undermine our progress, and when we least expect it (when the pressure is the greatest and the moment is most crucial) these old things often cause us to stumble and fall.

Remodeling the Soul

A prosperous soul is one in which negative and harmful ideas, thoughts, imaginations, and attitudes are being rooted out, pulled down, destroyed, and thrown down. Then new ideas and thoughts, which are in agreement with the Word of God and the level of life you want to live, are planted and built into the soul.

If we decide to remodel our kitchen, there is a tearing out phase that must take place before the new fixtures can be installed. We must first take out all the old fixtures and the old floor covering. We must check the framing and foundation and repair it if needed to make sure all of it is solid and stable. Nothing positive seems to be happening in the initial “destruction” stage, unless we keep in mind that we are doing all of this to make room for the new things desired in the kitchen.

By the same token, tearing out the old things is not enough either. There comes a time to install the new floor covering, paint the walls, and install the cabinets and other fixtures. When the kitchen remodeling project is finally finished, we will have gone through both the “tearing out” and the “building” stages. The remodeling was accomplished through the process of taking out the old and replacing it with the new.

Putting Off and Putting On

The apostle Paul talks about this in his letters to the Ephesian and Colossian churches. He shows the process whereby a person is changed so they can become the person God wants them to be in life.

If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:21-24 NKJV).

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:8-10 NKJV).

Paul instructed believers to put off the old man and put on the new man. Both are necessary if we’re going to get where God wants us to be. Once we’re born again, believing what God’s Word tells us will cause change to take place in our mind. Embracing both what the Word of God tells us not to be and what it tells us to be enables us to change the attitudes of our mind.

It may not be fun to identify old thoughts and attitudes and judge them as unacceptable by what the Word tells us. However, we can get through this part of the process by keeping in mind that this is necessary so we can implement the Word of God for a new way of thinking that God wants us to have.