Your internal renovation

There are a couple things that happen in the process of becoming a Christian, and not all of these things are told to you beforehand, or even thereafter.  I think they are kept somewhat secret to not scare off the new Christians, or the people who are hesitant to develop a relationship with God.

For me, I would have, and still would like to have a guidebook to what it is to be a Christian.  How the process will evolve or could likely evolve, I think it would be so beneficial, so people know what they are getting into. 

I think there is almost a safety net in knowing that when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, which obviously, I am a proponent for, you, need to know that things in your life are going to change.  

That is a given!

In my walk of being a Christian no one ever said to me, now get ready because A B C & D are going to start happening in your life, and this is normal.  You are not crazy, possessed or less of a Christian if these things happen.    This would have been so beneficial to me and my walk with God.

There are so many things I didn’t know, and so many things I still don’t know, but I can tell you one thing I know for sure, I thought I was doing it all wrong. 

I was convinced, and still have to battle daily, that I was the worst Christian ever, and God is going to through me out of the club because I made mistake after mistake after mistake.  

What I’ve come to know is that is satan’s way of keeping me penned in.  That is satans way of controlling me and not allowing my relationship with God to flourish, so I can’t be an asset to the kingdom of God.

I know there are some people who have been very fortunate to have a family that brought them up in the church, so they have support and knowledge of these things and what to expect, but many of us come to Jesus in a very different way.

We all have our own paths to Jesus, but many of those paths come from a place of pain and desperation.  Many of those times when we finally surrender and accept Jesus as our savior is because, unfortunately, we don’t know what else to do, we have exhausted all we can do, physically, or know to do.  We figure, if we can’t figure it out, then we best give it to God, and finally, allow Him to take care of it. 

The major problem there, is we should have given it to Him right away.

Most of the people who come to Jesus out of hurt, pain and desperation are coming alone.  They are not coming with a support team intact and they probably are not coming with an example they can look up too.  They are alone in this walk and they need to know that the walk is not always easy.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 9:17 how vital change is.  (17) Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

To me verse 17 is telling us that it is vital to not allow us, as Christians, to be filled with God without letting God fill us.  God has to come and almost renovate the house He’s going to live in before He can reside in you.

The Holy Spirit is Holy, it is clean and it is pure.  The Holy Spirit is without sin, and is the Spirit of God that comes to reside in you, when you accept Jesus as your Savior.  The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to help guide you, correct you, comfort you, pray for you and to give you the words to pray.  He is our help mate and He speaks to God on our behalf, so as you can see, the Holy Spirit is a big deal!

I would imagine, when you first move into a new place, apartment, office or home you will clean up the area before you move in.  I would think, depending on the state of the building, would show you the level of your cleaning.  If you move into a brand new home you are probably not going to have to clean as much as you would if you were moving into a newly renovated home.

This is how the Holy Spirit is.

When the Holy Spirit comes to live in you He must clean up the place.  He must remove things about you that are not pleasing to Him, to make room for all the things He brings with Him.  You can’t make a one cup measuring cup hold two cups of sugar, and neither can your spirit.  Your spirit can’t continue to bow down to your flesh when the Holy Spirit is now residing there.

This is why you can’t put new wine in an old wineskin. 

Physically you can’t put new wine in an old wineskin, because as we read, the wineskin will explode.  The reason is the skin has already been treated internally from the prior wine, and when you place new wine in the skin it causes the wineskin to break down and explode. 

This is also how it can feel to be changed from who you were before accepting Christ, to who you are going to be, after the Holy Spirit is done with your renovation. 

I can tell you some days I felt like I was in an all-out war internally.  I was struggling so much with my brain, heart and spirit that there was no peace.  To be honest I am still in that struggle.  Some days it’s easy and then there are other days when I want to put yellow construction tape all around me and just stay indoors.

I think Jesus in a way, is giving us a heads up to not make the mistake of coming to Him and expecting to be the same.  I read an article recently that said that Jesus isn’t magic, and I had to laugh because though I knew Jesus wasn’t a magician it was hard for me not to relate to Him in that way.

He is telling us this is going to be hard, and when you continue to stay in the old man while the new man is trying to be created, you are going to struggle, burst or feel like you are being torn to pieces. 

The hope or goal is to allow the Holy Spirit to come in and start the renovation process and make you clean and prepared for the new wine, Him.   When we submit and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work that He needs to do, we don’t have to worry about the struggle or being torn to pieces.

Now, I want to make it clear, that doesn’t mean you won’t feel pain in the process of change, but what it does mean is that the process won’t be as long because you are working together and not against each other.   

I also would like to touch on what I mean when I say pain.  This can obviously be physical pain but most of the time, the pain comes from submitting to God and not your fleshly desires, or the way you used to do things. 

Example:  You know the person who annoys you beyond no end.  Just looking at the person sends smoke out of your ears.  The old you would avoid this person like the plague, and when you went to lunch, dinner, home or even at the copier machine you would talk about them.  You would speak poorly about them to anyone and everyone and watch out if someone agreed with you because this would cause the conversation to truly flow.   

That all feels good. You vent, release and move forward.  Right, nothing wrong in what you did… Or was there?   The new you will still have the urge to do all of these things but there will be a nudge, a pinch or something inside of you saying nope, this isn’t acceptable to God.  This is not you anymore.   BUT the flesh of the old man wants to have a go at the conversation.  This is an example of the pain I am referring too.  The pain of having to restrain yourself when you really want to join in with your opinions.

When we accept Christ we are a new creature in Christ and when we allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in our lives we truly become a new creature.  The old us is torn away and the new man arrives.  There is a process and a reason for all of this and most importantly a major benefit in the end.

Submitting to God and allowing Him to guide you into truth and His light will not only change you, your mind, your spirit and your emotions; it will change the people around you.  You will see that people speak differently to you and they behave differently around you.  This isn’t something to be upset about this is something to be excited about, because they are reacting to seeing God through you. 

It’s really hard to be mean to someone who is being kind to you, and it’s really hard to continue to treat someone one way when you see that they are changing to something else.  We get to represent God in the process of all of this renovation.

It’s time for us to listen and take heed to the words we see in Matthew 9:17, and realize that for us to live the life that Jesus died for us to have, we have to die to our self.  We have to allow the old man to go away and the new man to come, so we can thrive and not be torn to pieces!