How do you feel about yourself? Are you happy with who you are? Or do you sense the need for change in your heart? Most of us want change. It’s frustrating, though, when it doesn’t come quickly. It causes us to lose hope that it ever will. God has a purpose in allowing painful circumstances. This is because He needs to deal with the weakness of our flesh. He must go deep within our nature to rebuild our character—a true change of heart.

It’s a process He can accomplish by no other means than time and suffering. God’s purpose for creating us as He has, sheds a lot of light on why He allows sin to be a problem. Understanding our freedom from the power of sin is so important! Why? Because through it God offers us unfettered relationship with Himself—in spite of ourselves—the true source of transformation.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Is our heart capable of genuine change? I can see how I truly have changed, initially through my born-again experience, and then more slowly over the many years since. But in many ways I’m the same person I’ve always been. I see it when I’m confronted by something that challenges the self-will still residing at the deepest levels of my being. Our flesh seems to be incapable of fundamental change—controllable maybe, but not entirely changeable. Paul agrees that this is so in his teaching in Romans 7.

On the other hand, The Bible implies that we have the power to change our heart by our choices. Can both be true? I think they can. The transformed lives of millions of Christians prove that the heart can indeed change. But unfortunately, there are millions more whose attitudes and behavior shed doubt on it. What’s the difference between the two? Choice. Decisions made in response to our circumstances hold the key.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Self-interest, ugly as it may be, is actually a gift of God. It helps us make our way in this world. Having a healthy sense of self-worth—feeling significant—motivates us to reach toward God’s purpose for our life. It’s rooted in the fact that we truly are valuable.

God showed me this in an unusual way. Next door to us lived a child with Down Syndrome. He functioned at the level of a three-year-old, though he was much older. But his condition allowed him to speak freely from the heart—totally without pretense. Every time I saw this young man, he asked, “Do you love me?” Now we wouldn’t dare express ourselves like this, but isn’t this need at our very core? “Am I significant to you? Am I deserving of your love?” Self-interest—a gift of God? Yes! Because an inconsequential life is tough to bear, and one that is meaningless is practically a death sentence.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

It is said that man is a free moral agent, meaning he possesses unrestricted power in making moral choices—we call it free will. Undeniably, God’s eternal purpose required that man be given the ability to choose—not merely between right and wrong, but more importantly in regard to the lordship of God over his life.

Yet what appears on the surface to be the ability to choose freely, is something more than merely free will. Man’s rejection of God does not in any way mean that he possesses freedom of choice in regard to everything else. Rather, in refusing to accept God’s purpose for his life, he inevitably opens himself up to control by another force—Satan. The tool the devil uses to subjugate man is his will—a will inherently rooted in self-interest. So instead we should think of this self-serving attribute of man’s nature—what we commonly call free will—as self-will.

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

Why are cars called autos? It’s because they’re self–powered. In the Greek, the word autos means self. God has designed us with the capacity to make our own choices—we’re self-propelled, so to speak. Self is simply me, a personal being given the glorious gift of existence and awareness. But this gift of life has the effect of placing me at the center of my own personal universe. Sure, we deny that the world revolves around us. Yet given the true nature of self, it’s hard to believe otherwise!

           The Bible uses the term heart to convey the idea of self. Think of the heart as the engine that runs our being. Both our mind-set and our behavior are dictated by what is in the heart. Jesus said, “The good man brings forth what is good out of his heart; but the evil man brings forth evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”

From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself