WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN
THE LIFE OF ANOTHER PERSON
Rev. Mike Jones,
One of the greatest inspirations a person can have is the knowledge that they have helped another person to grow and develop. It makes a tremendous amount of difference in our work when we believe what we are doing is a help to someone else. Even pain is endurable if we believe it has a purpose!
We have the Desire to help other people change their conduct but it is often frustrating to find what is needed to actually produce change in a person. Parents want children to do right and live right. Wives want their husbands to be the man they have dreamed about and the father their children need. Employers want employees who work hard and grumble little. What can YOU do to help people live up to their potential? Here are four guidelines that can help make a difference in the lives of people around you.
1) Be an Example for them- People mirror the people around them. They follow these examples in language, in prejudice, in actions toward others. Be a good Example and you will be surprised at the impact it will have on those who surround you.
Jesus used this principle- For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. (John 13:15)
Paul encouraged Timothy to use this principle- Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. (1 Tim. 4:12)
2) Be an Instructor to them- Teach people what you want taught and they will learn what you want them to learn! Do not expect them to “magically” know what to do if they are not instructed what to do. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. (Proverbs 9:9)
3) Be an Encourager of them- Many life changing moments in my own life came when someone encouraged me to keep on going when I wanted to quit. Encouragement is a powerful tool to shape a person’s personality- But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see. (Deuteronomy 3:28)
4) Be a Witness about God to them- Realize that only God can truly change a person. The Heart of the matter is the matter of the Heart- People do what they do because they are what they are!
1) Short Term Change can be produced by Disease, Debt, Devotion, Discourse, and Desire. You would probably be amazed if you knew the conduct changes people promise Doctors, Preachers, Judges, and Spouses. But these short term “cycle changes” seldom produce long term results and often produce depression and despair. (Other people can change but something is wrong with me and I cannot change).
2) Long Term change in the Conduct of a person only occurs when the Character of that person is changed; and that is a “God thing”- Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is the reason we need Bible Preaching and Bible Teaching. If human efforts or examples were all we needed to change people then we would not need the Church and the Bible. We have seen, however, that human education or human riches only change the way a person does wrong. It takes Divine Power to change the human heart into a new creature- A change so drastic until it is called being “Born Again”.
Show People Jesus and marvel at the Change worked by the Spirit of God- But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)