In today’s devotion we will examine a third big lie of Satan.
Lie #3 – You can change yourself.
Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution only to see it fail by the end of January? It’s hard enough to try to lose weight or stop smoking, but sometimes sheer willpower can accomplish these goals. However, no amount of willpower can change your fundamental spiritual nature – your sin nature. Changing that nature is like changing your genetic makeup – it’s just not possible. While we can temporarily change many outward things about ourselves like our hair color and our jobs, our inner sin nature – the root problem – is impossible to change on our own.
We live in a society that has literally spawned an entire industry of self-help books. The problem with these self-help books is that they start with a faulty premise. That premise is that in our self we have the capacity to do good and improve our innermost being. This goes against the clear teaching of Scripture for we read: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.” (Romans 7:18). No amount of self-help can change our sin nature. According to the Apostle Paul: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1).
A classic example of this is Alcoholics Anonymous. They try to reform the alcoholic, but sadly many in this movement, while sometimes getting rid of the alcohol, become chain cigarette smokers. What is needed is not reform but transformation which can only come about through divine regeneration. The only hope that any meaningful change can take place is through the spiritual surgery of the heart. This amazing act of regeneration is totally a sovereign work of God. Since we as humans are totally depraved there is nothing we can do to change ourselves – only God can produce meaningful change in the life of a sinner.
Programs, self-help books, and willpower will never be able to transform the inner state of humanity. Only Christ can change a sinner into a saint, and transform us from the life of bondage we are in to one of freedom. Satan’s lie that we can change ourselves has cause countless millions to look to sinful man to change sinful man – and that my friends is an impossibility.