by Elder Peter Lim
One of the more popular praise songs of the 1980s involved the words, “He’s changing me, my precious Jesus, I’m not the same person that I used to be…” People change. There are good changes and bad changes. Good changes are always a result of the gracious work of God in one’s life. Bad changes are always a manifestation of our own sinful tendencies and resistance to the Word of God.
- As a Christian matures, good changes include: sinning less, gaining in wisdom, learning more about God, increasing discernment, loving/caring more, etc.
- Unfortunately some people change in other ways which have less to do with maturity and more to do with passage of time: hearts become more hardened to certain sins, less tolerance of other people’s “issues”, decreasing excitement about evangelism and the gospel, and more cynical to receive teaching from men whom they used to respect.
I’m sure there are many more that you can think of. So why do some people change one way and others in another way?
I believe that the main difference in the way Christians change has to do with humility. This humility is produced by a growing awareness and hatred of one’s own sinfulness and a recognition that it is only by His amazing grace that He saved a wretch like me. Good changes occur in the heart. This affects all of life since the root cause of how one deals with changes is always related to the heart’s attitudes. A Christian’s heart can never “get over” the gospel since it is permanently changed as it is transformed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. It is the one thing in life that remains constant (other than change itself): the Christian’s heart grows in its capability to love God and worship Him more wholeheartedly. One illustration of this is the way a husband and wife’s love for one another grows with the passage of time. I’ve always wondered how married couples can honestly say the phrase “I love you more today than yesterday… since that would be admitting that one didn’t love one’s spouse as much the previous day! Since I have been married now for almost 18 years, I have come to understand that my capacity to love my wife has grown, and therefore I can say that I love her more with each passing day. But it takes humility to admit that you weren’t always as capable as you are now.
As already mentioned, the heart sometimes changes in a bad way by becoming hardened due to prolonged exposure to and tolerance of sin. No wonder then that Paul warns against keeping “bad company” in 1 Cor. 15:33. On one hand, some Christians confuse the idea of befriending and caring for their non-Christian friends with keeping bad company with them. On the other hand, Jesus is sometimes incorrectly held up as an example of someone who “hung out” with sinners. Jesus didn’t spend casual, prolonged time with people who refused to recognize who He was. He was there with them for the purpose of rescuing them from damnation. A sign of maturity as a Christian is that our friendship with non-Christians is purposefully evangelistic because we have been permanently changed. That is, one key to not changing in a bad way is by behaving consistently and intentionally with whom we have become in Christ.
I’m sure that we all have friends who need to be saved; naturally we want to spend time with them. We will experience some conflict because those opportunities will compete for your attention with other opportunities, such as church activities. There is no definite right answer as to what we should do every time…but whatever we do must be done for His glory. And be careful that you are influencing them more than they are influencing you. I am not proposing that every encounter with a non-Christian friend must include a gospel presentation and a challenge to repent. However, the non-Christian friend should have a clear understanding that although we are both sinners, there is a fundamental difference between us, and that difference is Christ. If this difference is suppressed or minimized, our Christian testimony gets diluted. Compromising our message leads to compromising our values, which is the difference between being a light and salt to the world and being corrupted. Brothers and sisters, we must recognize this sign of spiritual maturity and care for the unsaved because their eternal lives are at stake. We must be vigilent in all areas of our lives, including “gray areas” which are not necessarily sinful, but are not necessarily wise either. Let’s remember to live gentle and sincere love for unbelievers, without being corrupted by their worldly values.