Lesson 9: How God Changes Us

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

The Bible paints a surprising picture of what it really means to be a Christian. We are people who have come into a unique relationship with the amazing God of heaven, and we are now living every day in His abundant favor. This new relationship with Christ also brings a new spiritual influence and power that impacts our life. This power helps guide the Christian into a way of life where they can grow spiritually. This new influence in our life guarantees God will always be with us to help us grow spiritually. As we grow, we learn about two very important areas of our life – how to fight against sin and how to become more like Christ.

How does God help a believer grow, and what is this new influence and power? The most important part of this growth process is that the Holy Spirit now lives within the believer. It is as if our heart becomes His home, so He is always there to help us learn and grow.

When I was growing up my mom or dad were always there to help us with things we needed to learn. They taught us how to learn, how to take care of ourselves, how to form good relationships on our own. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit does for us. He is not only our spiritual teacher, but He also cares for us more than anyone else possibly could. So, whatever He may teach us is always something that will greatly help and strengthen our life.

The problem we have when we first come to Christ is that the new spiritual life God has given us is an entirely different kind of life than we were previously living. In fact, it would be foolish to think that at the beginning of our Christian experience, we could just be turned over to our own wisdom or our own ideas about how to live the Christian life.


What kind of growth are we really trying to achieve? Our ultimate goal is to become as much like Jesus Christ as is possible. That pleases our heavenly Father more than anything else does – when our life reflects His Son.

Jesus told His disciples one day that “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) So, the more someone sees Christ in our life, the more they will know what God is like.

That leads us to the second area that the Holy Spirit will deal with -- sin. The more sin there is in our life, the less of Christ people will see in us. If you invited a friend to your house and they asked for some water to drink, I doubt they would drink what you gave them if the glass had all kinds of dirty food in it. In the same way, when people see unclean things in our life, it is very difficult for them to see any value in being a Christian.

For people to see Christ in us, the Holy Spirit will reveal to us all of the dirty sins in our life that would prevent them from seeing Him.

Pray: Father, will you please help me to both see and get rid of all the dirty things in my life that do not honor You so that people can see Your wonderful Son in my life?

Suggested scriptures to read: 2 Timothy 2:14-26, Proverbs 25:4-5
Memorize: Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”