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Our weekly newsletter filled with news, updates, and inspiring stories of how God is working in the Bay Area.

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People want to be inspired. Don’t believe me? Just look at the start of the 2013 football season.  People are so excited to watch football. We all like to see these athletes do things we wish we could do, we hope for our favorite team to change for the better, for a comeback win when our team is down 14-0 at the half.  And when these changes happen, we are inspired.   We don’t have to rely on others for inspiration we can actually live it.  We can change and there is nothing more inspiring than change.  The most inspiring moments you have ever seen or been apart of have been moments of great change.  A comeback win, major weight loss, a relationship on the rocks revived, reconciled with an family member or friend, single one day and married the next, becoming a father.  The most inspiring moments of our lives are moments of amazing change.

Everyone has some things they can change on their own and everyone has some things they can’t change without God.

  • Do you lack inspiration?
  • What do you want to change?
  • What have you changed recently?

Here are four tips for change:

Change Begins With Honesty

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:5-9 (NIV)

We all have sins and weaknesses that we can’t change without God.  These are the things we try to change on our own and can’t. It’s impossible to change these things without first being honest with yourself, God and then people.  The only way to be close to God is to be honest and in the light.

  • Write down what you want/need to change.
  • Pray and tell God about it.
  • Then have the courage to tell your friends about it.

Change Is Not Done Alone

9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NIV)

In the process of repenting of sin or overcoming a weakness we will not be perfect and we will fall.  When we fall, we don’t always feel like getting back up and moving forward.  We need friends to pick us up, encourage us, push us and point us to God.  Everyone needs friends!

  • Who are three people you can build a friendship with and rely on?
  • What can you help them change too?

Change Takes Perseverance

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)

Change isn’t easy, though I want it to be.  If your like me, you want things to be easy, minimal effort with maximum change.  It’s almost always harder than we want it to be.  Change takes perseverance.  Jesus provides the motivation to keep at it.  He persevered when it wasn’t easy and gives us an inspiring example to follow.

  • Hold on to this scripture and others to inspire you and remind you to keep at it.

Change Inspires Others

12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

Acts 5:12-14 (NIV)

When we change, our relationships change and the people that see it are inspired.  They can’t help but join in and change themselves.

  • What’s one thing, that if you changed it, people would be amazed?
  • Who around you will be inspired when you change?

 

 

Written by

Nick Straw

Nick Straw is a Santa Clara University alum, and is passionate about ministry and community service work in the San Francisco Bay Area.