How to Help Another Person Change
Have you ever experienced a moment of conviction, made a preliminary confession of sin and commitment to change, only to have it get lost and forgotten about in the frenetic pace of life?
This is the struggle of every Christian because, while we have the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we also still wrestle with remaining sin while residing in a fallen world.
So how do we truly change? But more specifically, as it pertains to our current series on Love. Know. Speak. Do., how do we help others change?
Love. Know. Speak. DO.
When you help others Do, you are simply encouraging them to be dissatisfied with the gap between their confessional and functional theology.
We meet with them, encourage them, challenge them, rebuke them, and model for them how to live out their identity as children of God, claiming the rights and privileges of the gospel (see Hebrews 10:19-25).
But how, specifically?
Here are three agenda-setting questions to constantly be asking yourself about the person whom you are mentoring, discipling, or holding accountable:
1. What does the Bible say about the information that has been gathered?
Put simply, spend more time in the Bible. Not with the other person, but with yourself and God. Rich and powerful discoveries await as you examine the other person’s life through the lens of Scripture, looking for new ways to understand how a distinctly biblical worldview shapes our response to the issues in that person’s life.
Apart from your own time in the Word, set aside additional time and ask, “What has God taught, promised, commanded, warned, encouraged, and done that addresses the struggles this person is facing?”
2. What are God’s goals for change for this person in this situation?
This question applies God’s call to “put off” and “put on” (Ephesians 4:22–24) to the specifics of a person’s thoughts, motives, and behavior. What does God want him or her to think, desire, and do? Answering these questions marks out our destination and the end of the process of change.
We need to present biblical goals that fit the context in which a person lives and works. You can only do this if you have processed the person’s situation through sound biblical thinking and concrete goal setting.
3. What are some biblical methods for accomplishing God’s goals of change?
After establishing biblical goals, we need to determine the best biblical means of accomplishing them. Often people have a sense of what is wrong, but the way they seek to correct it complicates matters further.
We always need to ask: How should this person “put off” what needs to be put off, and “put on” what needs to be put on? What specific steps of obedience is God calling him or her to?
God has chosen us to be his ambassadors in the life of another person. Nothing we can do is more important or will have more lasting results. In view of the holiness and weightiness of this calling, we should not accept it without preparation.
“How can I be used by God to stimulate the kind of change that needs to take place in this person?” This is the priceless question to ask every day in your discipleship and personal ministry relationships.
Our goal is more than announcing and denouncing sin or providing a quick-fix temporary solution that doesn’t address the heart. We need to identify what specific and permanent changes God is calling this person to make.
May the Spirit help us as we apply the principles, perspectives, commands, and themes of God’s great redemptive story to the concrete realities of another person’s story!
A Prayer for Today: God, help me to be a person who asks open-ended, survey, and focused questions that get to the heart of the person I’m discipling. I want to be someone who incarnates you, Lord Jesus, to the people in my life and I need you to help me be intentional to ask good questions that don’t just gather facts. I want to be an instrument in your hands to help provide sight to spiritual blindness, but only you can make blind eyes see. Would you make that a possibility by working through me to help others? Thank you for all you’re doing in my life and in the lives of others I care about. In Jesus’ name, amen.
God bless,
Paul Tripp
Discussion Prompt for Children:
How can God use us to help other people change and become more like Jesus? Why should we care about helping other people to walk with God more closely?
Reflection Questions
1. Where do you see the gap between your confessional and functional theology? Take some time to evaluate where you’re at personally as you process this question, then take a moment to reflect on the gap that may exist between the confessional and functional theology of the person whom you are mentoring, discipling, or holding accountable.
2. How has your biblical worldview shaped your responses to others? In what ways should the help, mentorship, or discipleship you offer be informed by your personal time in Scripture?
3. What kind of biblical goals are you presenting that fit the context in which the person you’re helping lives and works? Are you framing the goals you’ve laid out for them in a sound biblical way? What does God want him or her to think, desire, and do?
4. How should the person you’re helping put off what needs to be put off, and put on what needs to be put on? What specific steps of obedience is God calling him or her to take? How is your discipleship focused on the heart, and if it’s primarily about behavior modification for him or her, how can you be intentional about making the priority a matter of the heart for them?
5. How can you be used by God to stimulate the kind of change that needs to take place in the person you’re helping, mentoring, or discipling?