By John Robin Murphy
A number of years ago, I began ministering to substance abusers at a rescue mission. I will never forget the shock I felt when I learned that many of the men we had worked with in the seven-month program were either high or stoned by sundown of graduation day. The following weeks revealed how truly futile my ministry efforts had been. One by one, most of our group fell back into their old life. Yes, I would have done it to help just one. However, the absence of sustained life change in most of the men after months of caring investment brought on demoralizing self-doubt.
Determined to try harder, I committed to deliver the Truth of God’s Word with as much hope and energy as I could muster. A year later, however, found me defeated, with my head down on my desk, praying to God to show me what was missing. I quickly had a strong impression that played out in my mind like a conversation with God. It started with a question: “Why don’t you weigh 300 lbs. anymore or get drunk 3 nights a week like you used to?” After a moment of confusion, the answer came. God had rewired my heart so that it no longer drove me to eat beyond the need of my body or drink to excess. That brought to mind the scripture, Romans 12:2, “Do not conform, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” I understood! These men needed the same heart change God had worked in me. Instead, the hearts we checked into the program were virtually the same as the ones we checked out seven months later! Their old hearts took them back to their old lives.
Without heart change there is no sustained life change. Everything else is behavior modification that is rarely sustained outside of the program. The men were confessing Christians when they entered the program. The new nature that each had received upon their conversion was presumably in place. Over the next 7 months, they were immersed in worship, teaching, devotionals, church, preaching, book studies, 12-step groups and more. But were we transforming hearts? Our goal and the goal that energizes every ministry, donor and volunteer alike is the transformation of the most challenged people in our society into self sufficient, faith-filled Christians. However, fostering sustained life change is actually the most elusive outcome of ministry.
As I began to look for evidence of sustained life change in other ministries, I discovered that our results were typical even in church settings.
Across faith-based and secular programs for addiction, incarceration, smoking, or any self-destructive behavior, the failure rate is typically between 75 to 95%
Many prominent ministries, churches, and denominational leaders such as Prison Fellowship Ministry and Willow Creek Church strongly suspect or have research evidence to prove that they are not transforming hearts and achieving sustained life change the way they had hoped.
It is also evident from research that the truth of the Gospel as it is currently presented does not guarantee that hearts are transformed, even for those who receive the new nature promised by God at conversion:
Statistically, born-again believers have a moral failure rate equal to that of the secular world. Barna Group
85% of young people between the ages of 16 and 29 believe that Christians are judgmental, hypocritical and un-Christ-like. Barna Group
Willow Creek Church studied itself and it’s 350 affiliated churches and found that the correlation between church activities and the development of spiritual maturity was 0%! Willow Creek Church
The question we must wrestle with is how it is possible that Christians can immerse themselves in the truth of the Gospel, but still struggle to transform themselves and apparently those to whom they minister?
The answer lies in understanding the difference between salvation and sanctification. It is clear that Christ freed believers from the law of sin and death, but the Word also says Christians are now under the law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:2.) Christians are required not to move in the ways of the flesh, but to work in cooperation with the Spirit to be molded into the image of Christ outwardly and inwardly (Romans 8:4, 29.) The focus must be on the “inwardly.” Remember Jesus said to wash the inside of the vessel first.
No matter how much we try to be more Christ-like in our behavior, it is a struggle against who we are if we do not change inwardly. On the other hand, if a believer’s heart is transformed to increasingly reflect the heart of Christ, then being more Christ-like comes naturally. Actually, as someone’s heart is increasingly transformed, he or she can’t help but act more Christ-like!
There are many characteristics of the heart of Christ. Let’s consider forgiveness to illustrate the point. Extending forgiveness toward others is a fundamental requirement of God. When we comply, we have a heart that is more like the heart of Christ. If we refuse to comply, however, we are promised the suffering of the unmerciful servant in Mathew 18:35. He was turned over by the King to be tortured for his unforgiveness.
Whenever we suffer torment for opposing God’s will, we have two choices. One is the path to freedom and the other takes us into bondage. We can give in to the urging of the flesh and embrace worldly distractions like food or drugs to medicate our heart angst, or we can go before God on our knees and repent of our unforgiveness. When we repent, we are calling upon God in faith to remove the source of our torment forever. If we choose to temporarily and intermittently crowd out our pain with the world’s solutions, we enter into bondage to an idol. When we are in bondage, we add loss of control of our behavior to our suffering.
My personal breakthrough from overeating and other medicating behaviors began when I forgave the abusers of my young life and turned a heart of ministry toward them. As I did so, I began to notice that God had removed tormenting bitterness from my heart. From that point, I was increasingly able to manage everyday temptation instead of giving in to my emotionally driven lust for food. Later, I also repented of having food as an idol which gave me more relief. After forgiveness and repentance, anyone’s heart will more resemble the heart of Christ. And sustained life change follows the new heart.
In ministering heart transformation, we need to help people understand how they are opposing God’s desire for them to have the heart of Christ and lead them to comply.
This method of heart transformation has been successful in churches and ministries, including a maximum security prison, women’s and men’s prisoner reentry programs, and discipleship and drug addiction programs.
In the mission where I worked, we found that the more we focused on heart transformation in the addiction program, the more the men began to experience lasting breakthroughs. One man who had not slept through the night for 10 tormenting years began to sleep soundly every night. Another man, intensely frustrated because he could not comprehend scripture, became able to quote passages and discuss them with understanding after addressing his heart issues. Overall, those that genuinely pursued a transformed heart fared better than those who didn’t. And even though these profoundly addicted men continued to struggle, the occurrence, depth and duration of their failures were notably less self-destructive as they worked on transforming their hearts.