Become willing to change (4)

To bear fruit, you must dedicate yourself to the process. Whether it’s in your job, your marriage, your ministry, or your walk with God, once you dedicate yourself to ‘increase in the knowledge of God’ and a lifestyle of planned improvement, it becomes normal to you. And you realise when you’re not making progress that something is missing. It’s been reputed that the classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein refused to listen to recordings of his playing. Even only a few months afterwards, he was unhappy with what he heard. Why? Because he had changed and improved—but his recordings had not.

Stop and think about the non-negotiables in your life. What are you willing to live and die for? Write down what you want to hold on to at any cost and fully explain why. After you have done that, everything else should be open to change. Here is how Paul prayed for the Christians in the Colossian church: ‘For this reason we also, since the day we heard about it, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all perseverance and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.’ (Colossians 1:9–12 NASB)