How to know if God has changed someone

God’s work is powerful and there are signs leftover when God completes His work.
1. Before the change there are three things that I look for.
a. The person is desperate for change.
b. The person’s toys and coping mechanisms are not working 100%.
c. There is someone in their life that is calling upon God for change. There maybe a small child or a parent but someone somewhere is making a connection upstairs.

2. During the change brokenness is the key element. The person’s life is horribly and wonderfully exposed to God’s light and the pain is unbearable. During that pain time God is working deep in the person’s life and making changes. Sometimes it takes years to fully see what God did during the unbelievably painful time. Surgery is horribly painful – the doctor has to cut to get in and sometimes cut things out to help the person get back to health. God is a willing surgeon who will do whatever is necessary to insure His children are healthy. There is not one thing that He will not use in your life to help you return to health.

3. Quiet. The person gets quiet. There is a peace in their heart that they cannot explain. There may not be peace on the outside but they have been trained by the pain to rest in the peace without answers. The answers come, when they are supposed to, but not because the person fretted until they were given an answer.

4. The change lasts. When God changes someone it lasts into the future. The change is so powerful it can impact children, family and friends. I saw God change Alva. He was acting out in horrible ways and hurting a lot of people. I saw God change him. He was different. And I wanted that difference. I wanted to be changed like that. And God did it for me too.

People Can’t Change

Wow, is that a powerful statement or what. I am making a declaration of something that I have learned from counseling and coaching people for over 30 years – People can’t change.
We depend upon people to change. We marry someone expecting that marriage will do it and make the person change. We believe someone when they say that they are going to change. We believe hiring that certain person will make the difference and because they have a job they will change.

Let me make a crucial difference in our language. People mature and un-mature. But people under their own power do not change. You make the apple smaller or bigger but an apple cannot change from being an apple.

My greatest grief is watching seemingly intelligent and devout believers in Jesus marry someone BANKING on Jesus changing the person. You get to KEEP what you MARRY. Stop pretending. And some women believe that having sex with a man will change him. No, if he is an adulterer at heart, sex, less or more is not going to change him. He may be intoxicated with you for a while but he is going to be and do what he is.

Now, God and God alone retains the right to “save” people. He can take a man that is a lemon and change him into a holy olive from the inside out. That man will then begin to work out his salvation. Over time his “olive-ness” will be known to all. In his infancy he will still echo some of the lemon-ness of his old life. But God will correct and discipline and bring him to repentance. But don’t you bank on it.