Some wives waste time trying to
re-train their husbands; abandoning the children they ought to be training in
the process. By the time they realize they can’t change their husbands, their
children are too old to be trained. I say to such wives, you can’t change your
husbands. He is too old to be re- trained by you. If he has challenges, leave
him to God and focus on training your children. Today, I am going a step
further to say to everyone reading this blog – you cannot change any adult
except they decide to change and guess what, not even God can. It takes man
allowing his/her will to be engaged by the truth (the Word of God) for change
to occur despite the capacity and/or potency of the word to transform.
Romans 12: 2 “Don’t
copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s
will for you.
You have to expose yourself to
something else for you to change. You can’t be infl
uenced by something you know
nothing about. So, for the word of God to transform a life, the mind of the
person has to be exposed to the word. To be exposed to something is not just to
hear it but to have an open mind toward it. You have to either deliberately or
inadvertently give that thing the opportunity to influence you for it to have
that power. So that you can be in church every day, listening through every sermon
and yet not be transformed because your mind is closed to the word of God.
Being fair to one’s self is
giving yourself the opportunity of hearing the word even if you elect to reject
it at the end. The only thing we are to shut our minds to is evil, concerning
which the bible admonishes that we remain totally ignorant. Sadly, this is the
one thing believers often have an open mind toward in our day so that we are
also beginning to have “gray areas” arguing that bad or good is based on
perception. Sometimes our minds are so closed that we can’t help but approach
God and/or His word with a closed mind. Unfortunately, this deprives one of
fresh revelation because even if God was shouting, you will only interpret His
word through your closed or set mind.
1 Corinthians 14:
20b “Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil”
Unfortunately, the greatest
victims of the closed mindset are often stubborn or strong willed believers. Before
you accuse boisterous believers since such traits are more easily exposed in
them, check that you are not quietly defiant because it is the same offence
with the same consequences. Such people hardly expose their minds to thoughts
that challenge them, not even God’s. They are so quick to speak that while you
are speaking, they are forming their next argument so they reject your views
without giving themselves the benefit of hearing you. In their own eyes, their
opinion is always best.
They are often convinced that if
you listened to them enough to understand them, you would agree with them. If
they respect you, they may go quiet after a while but if you have the same
discussion a few days after, they say exactly the same thing they said the last
time reaffirming that they remain where they were. Even when they manage to
hear God, they have explanations for why they cannot obey Him and don’t know it
is disobedience; the thing is though they heard, they interpreted Him through
their mindset. They believe God understands but the thing is this - our disobedience
does not really affect God, instead it keeps us on a longer than necessary
journey to success.
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