Self-Improvement

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:17-21 NIV)

If you type in “self-help books” on Amazon.com, over 425,000 entries come up.  Type in “self-improvement” and you get over 85,000 entries. Americans are big on becoming a “better you.”  

The only problem is, applying many of the suggestions of these books may lead to a better you, but will not change the fact that a better you is still a dead you.  The fact is without Jesus, all people are dead. (Ephesians 2:1-2) There is not one self-improvement book, or a thousand, that can change that.  To believe otherwise is to believe a mortician’s work can actually make a dead person only a sleeping one. No matter how much he does, he can’t change the fact that the person in the casket is dead.  

When we go the way of the self-help culture, we chase a fantasy.  Our situation is too dire and too great for us to correct on our own, or even with the help of “experts” who are likely as dead as we are.  No, as Paul says, the radical change we need can only come from God.  What makes us dead is our sin, and Jesus is the only solution to that problem.  We can’t work our way out of it.  We can’t buy our way out of it.  We can’t become righteous by trying harder or doing better.  And even if we can improve ourselves, by what standard do we measure that improvement?  Other dead people?

Contrary to popular opinion, God does not seek to improve us, but rather to re-create us, to transform us from being dead in our sin to being dead to sin.  That is an achievement far beyond our capabilities.  

Today, recognize that you have a sin problem, which you cannot fix.  If you are dead in sin, no amount of trying will bring you back to life.  Only God can do that.  After all, He is an expert in raising the dead to life.  

© Jim Musser 2015