Three Choices That Bring Change
by Rick Warren
Spiritual growth is not automatic. Change is a matter of choice. We can’t just passively sit around doing nothing and expect to grow. We must make three choices if we really want to change.

First, we must carefully choose what we think about. Proverbs 4:23, in the Good News Translation, says, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” Someone once said, “You’re not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.” That is, if you are going to change your life, you have to change your thought patterns. Change always begins with new thinking.

How does a person become a Christian? By repenting. Repentance is often a misunderstood term. I used to think of it as a man standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Turn or burn!” However, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, and it means to change your mind or perspective. When I became a Christian, I changed my perspective on many things. Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds—not by willpower.

The Bible teaches that the way we think determines the way we feel, and the way we feel determines the way we act. So if you want to change your actions, you have to go back to the source and change the way you think. Sometimes you may act resentful. Why? Because you feel resentful. Do you know why you feel resentful? Because you are thinking resentful thoughts. The same is true for anger and worry and many other kinds of destructive thought patterns.

When you change your thoughts, you also change the way you feel. Stop thinking the thoughts that are getting you into trouble and start thinking thoughts that will get you where you want to go.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). When you base your life on truth—when you live with the right kind of thoughts, not misconceptions or false beliefs, and you base your life on right thoughts out of God’s Word—you will be set free. You will find your old habits, feelings, and actions falling away.

We can also choose to depend on the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that God puts his Holy Spirit in us to give us power. All Christians have God’s Spirit in their lives, but not all Christians have God’s power in their lives. Jesus gives a beautiful illustration of this in John 15. He compares our spiritual life to a vine and its branches: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NKJV).

Now you might be saying, “How do I know whether I am abiding in Christ? How do I know if I am hooked to the vine? How do I know if I am depending on his Spirit?” Simple — look at your prayer life. Your prayers demonstrate your dependence on God.

What do you pray about? Whatever you pray about is what you are hooked into God about, what you are relying on him for. Whatever you don’t pray about is what you are trying to do on your own. Prayer is the acid test.

The secret of depending on God’s Spirit is to be incessantly in prayer. Pray about your decisions. Pray about your needs. Pray about your interests. Pray about your schedule. Pray about problems you are facing. Pray about people you are going to meet. Pray about purchases. Pray about everything. That is what it means to “abide”—to be aware that God is always with you, to practice his presence. As you pray, you will start to see the fruit of the Spirit developing in your life.

In addition to choosing our thoughts and choosing to depend on God’s Spirit, we can also choose how we respond to the circumstances of our lives. Viktor Frankl was one of the Jews sentenced to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. He says that while he was in the camp, the guards stripped him of everything. They took his identity. They took his wife. They took his family. They took his clothes. They even took his wedding ring. But there was one thing that no one could take from him. In a classic book he writes, “The last of human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.” The guards could not take from Frankl his freedom to choose his attitude.

We cannot control all the circumstances in our lives. We do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, or even today. We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control how we respond to them. We can control whether an experience makes us a bitter person or a better person. What matters in life is not so much what happens to us but what happens in us.

Paul talks about this in Romans 5:3–4. He says we can rejoice here and now, even in our trials and troubles, for they will produce perseverance in us and help us develop a mature character. We can rejoice in our problems, not just endure them, because we know that God is using them for our benefit. God even uses the problems we bring on ourselves.

Have you seen the luggage commercial that features a gorilla? A suitcase is shown going out on a conveyor belt at an airport, and instead of being picked up gently by a nice gentleman, it is manhandled by a gorilla. He hurls the luggage around the room, stomps on it, jumps on it, and throws it up in the air. Now, that luggage has character. It is reliable and stands the test. This week you may feel you have been beaten up at work or pushed around at home, but God can use even these kinds of situations for good in your life.

Here is a key truth: God produces the fruit of the Spirit in us by allowing us to encounter situations and people with characteristics that are exactly the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit.

Consider, for example, how God produces love in our lives. Loving lovely people or people just like us is easy. But to teach us real love, God puts some unlovely people around us. We learn real love by loving that cantankerous fellow at work or that pesky neighbor. God teaches us to love by letting us practice on the “unlovely.”

One last point: it takes time for fruit to ripen. There is no such thing as instant maturity or instant spiritual growth. Time is essential. When you try to rush fruit, it doesn’t taste as good. Have you ever eaten gassed tomatoes? That is what you purchase at the grocery store. If farmers picked ripe tomatoes and shipped them, they would get smashed on the way to market, so the farmers pick them green and spray carbon dioxide on them just before they go to market. That gas ripens green tomatoes into red very quickly. Now, there is nothing wrong with those tomatoes. But if you have ever eaten a vine-ripened tomato, there is no comparison. It takes time for fruit to ripen. And God is going to need time to ripen the spiritual fruit in your life.

You can begin by telling God right now that you want to be a productive, fruitful Christian, that you want to cooperate with his plan. Commit yourself to reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on the Bible. Ask God to use his Word to change the way you think. Invite the Holy Spirit to have free rein in your life. Don’t hold anything back. Pray and talk with him about everything. Accept your circumstances as a part of God’s plan to change your life. Ask him to help you respond to difficult people and unpleasant situations as Jesus would. God wants to produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Will you cooperate with him in that life-changing process?

From God’s Power to Change Your Life by Rick Warren