It’s hard to change. It just is. We can know we need to do better- stop cursing, stop lying, be more loving, whatever our “areas” might be- but knowing we need to clean up our act is a long way from making that change. In fact, many would say that people don’t really change much at all. But God calls us to walk uprightly and be holy like Him, so He makes sure to give us some tools to help us toward that end. One of those tools is His Word, aka the Bible.
Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. (Joshua 1:8 NLT)
There are actually lots of scriptures that tell us about the importance of reading the scriptures. And the more we heed this advice, the more our own thinking becomes aligned with God’s, and as our thinking changes, so do our words and eventually our actions.
For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV)
When we let the scriptures really sink in by reading them faithfully and taking them to heart, we experience spiritual growth without that same struggle that we have when we try to just act differently by sheer force of will.
The Word is alive! It gets into our heart and starts working on your problems and your bad habits. When you feed the Word in you, it starts changing you! (excerpt from Receiving Revelation from the Foundation Stone pt.2, by Dr. Chester C. Pipkin)
Let’s be faithful to prayerfully and consistently “feed in” God’s Word so that He can bring about that change in us that we can’t accomplish on our own.