Romans 10:1-4
1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them *(Israel) is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
* (My addition.)
1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them *(Israel) is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
* (My addition.)
Christians are, naturally, very keen to honor God, to show Him that they love Him by living righteously, to demonstrate to others that they are serious about God. And so, they set about to change for God, to create the holy, sacrificial life of a disciple of Christ full of moral acts, charitable deeds, pious observances. Some work very hard at this, inciting themselves (and others) to such living by various means, enduring the burden and cost of a "sanctified" life by telling themselves it is the least they can do given what Jesus did for them, or that it is just what the Christian life is, so "suck it up buttercup," or that eternal damnation waits just around the corner, popping out to swallow them if they don't step right.
Under this sort of living, change does happen. At least externally, where others can see, transformation occurs: The born-again alcoholic wins free of his addiction to booze; the saved adulterer ceases his sexual sin; the converted worldly wastrel becomes biblically-literate, a clever and careful thinker about God's truth; an entirely secular individual, selfish, fleshly and focused entirely on the short term embraces a new eternal, supernatural perspective. These changes all happen, though, often entirely under the force of zealous human effort.
Of course, non-believers make profound changes, too. Some go from rags to riches; some give up a self-serving life and enter monastic living in a Buddhist temple, striving to forsake all desire; some abandon their first-world living to serve the sick, and starving, and ignorant in third-world countries; some give up addictions, or a hyper-materialistic value system, or the endless, empty distractions of a modern, urban lifestyle for an off-grid, green existence, and so on.
When, then, I hear Christians exhorting others to the Christian way of living because it will transform them, make them better people, I remember the reply of one non-Christian that I encountered: "So what? I don't need God to be a better person, to change my ways. I can do that all by myself." As I've just explained, he was - and is - right.
So, is there any important difference between the transformation God works in us and the transformation we work in ourselves? Yes, absolutely, which is that, at the end of God's transformation of us, we know Him better, directly and personally, and enjoy deep, rich communion with Him, the Creator of the Universe. This is, really, the whole point of the sanctifying change God makes in His children: It allows them to fellowship with Him well. (1 Peter 3:10-12; Hebrews 12:14; Psalms 66:18)
It's out of this joyful, loving fellowship with God that the best worship of Him occurs and the greatest service to Him arises. I had a friend who loved golf. I mean, he REALLY loved golf. He spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours every season on club memberships, play, equipment, etc. It was no surprise, then, that he always wanted to talk about golf. He was incredibly enthusiastic about the sport - about his experience personally and about how good it would be for me, who doesn't play golf, to do so. His enthusiasm was natural and deep, pervading almost every conversation he had with me.
It is this very sort of natural, intense enthusiasm for God that we obtain when we are changed by Him and in the process deepened in our personal experience of Him. We are also able to speak about God in a more than merely academic way. We know Him directly and personally; He's our Master, King, and Friend, not just an interesting topic in a seminary class or weekly Bible study.
Direct, personal experience of God, of His transforming work in us, is also crucial to our trust and love of Him. We just don't trust beyond our knowledge; and the more intellectual rather than experiential that knowledge is, the less we tend to shape our lives to it. When God, then, gets right into the minutiae of our daily living and changes us in our thinking, attitudes, desires and conduct, counting on Him, believing Him, and loving Him happens inevitably and profoundly.
So, when we start manufacturing change for God, in our zealousness for Him working from our own human resources toward the life He calls us to live, we short-circuit things spiritually and relationally between ourselves and God. Our self-change always ends up being superficial, and laborious, and ultimately unsuccessful. At the end of doing for God, we know Him personally no better than when we began. And the longer we remain in this zealous but erroneous pattern of spiritual living, the more like the Pharisees we become, seeking to establish our own righteousness for God instead of letting God form in us, by His power, His own holy character.
Philippians 1:6
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is he who calls you, who also will do it.
1 Peter 5:10
10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
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