Can people really change? It’s a question that most people will ask at least once in their life about a friend, a family member or a loved one. It’s also a question that you ask most often about yourself. It’s easy to see a pattern in your life and to get frustrated because you keep falling into the same pattern of behaviour or sin and it’s frustrating. Here’s a short book that gets to the root of the question; can people change?
In Identifying Heart Transformation Nate Brooks does a great job of getting rid of some misconceptions about change and about the human heart and encourages the reader to see that God glorifying change is possible by the grace of God and through the power of God.
Nate starts by taking the reader through four different ‘windows’, four different terms used to observe our inner person. Those four windows are: soul, spirit, mind and heart. This chapter helps you see how each term is used in the Bible and the different nuances that go with the passages which enable you to have a more wholistic view when looking at yourself and the change within. Why is this important? Nate says…
“If we start with a wrong road map of the human person, it will ultimately lead to confusion about how we may be transformed. This becomes evident if we mistakenly see the various terms used within the Bible as chopping our inner man up into different pieces… Rightly understanding change is dependent upon rightly understanding what is being changed. Restoring heart, soul, mind, and spirit to their proper places as equivalent terms will bring clarity to understanding how change occurs. Each term has its own unique texture, giving us insight into who we are. However, at their core, each synonymously refers to our immaterial, inner person.”
The human heart, the inner self, is always working. There is never a moment where you are doing nothing, but there are different things happening in yourself that determine what you do and how you act, Nate groups them under three headings; reasoning, desiring and choosing. The reader is then taken on a journey through the Bible that shows how reasoning, desiring and choosing, all find their beginnings in the human heart. This means that our hearts are constantly working and that our hearts are pushing us in a certain direction (either toward or away from righteousness or unrighteousness).
That’s the ground work done, from chapter three onwards Nate wrestles more specifically with the questions of change;
- Can unbelievers really change?
- Do Christians and non-Christians change in the same way?
The result? Well it’s complicated, you should read the book! Nate helps you see that, of course a non-Christian can change, but that change is a change of lifestyle rather than a change of the heart (which is ultimately what is needed for every human being in order that they can be right with God). Christian change is brought about by the grace of God and is a change of the heart. The final section of the book draws out the applications of these two paradigms and how they aren’t actually that simple or black and white.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and had a lot of fun going to the different Bible verses mentioned and looking at the passages in their context. Nate Brooks has written this book which will help you understand yourself and those around you better and it will help you see how wonderfully gracious God is in changing people’s hearts. This book has 133 pages, it’s a very easy read, written with a conversational style that will suit most readers. Naturally all of your questions won’t be answered in the book, but it it a good introduction to get you thinking about how and why people change.
Buy your copy here and let me know what you think!
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