The recent emphasis in our church on righteousness by faith has correctly pointed to Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. But current theology favors more of an intellectual/emotional contract with God, of ten leaving behavior change out of the deal. Whereas our church used to be in the business of behavior change, now those interested in this aspect of our spiritual experience are considered legalistic or judgmental. We insist on Sabbath observance, but that is about it.
Yet our church is uniquely well positioned to help people whose problems demand changes in their lives. If Sabbath-keeping says anything, it is that we worship a God who changes things. A God who can create can re-create. And He does so not only in the glorification that takes place at Christ's second coming, but in people's lives today.
To become Christlike, people must change. And a relationship with Christ changes not only one's mental and spiritual nature, but one's physical being as well. Some will say that the medical community is better qualified than the pastor or the church to handle such problems as obesity, high cholesterol, and smoking. After all, these kinds of problems result in serious illness and death. But so does sin. The medical community has no cure for these problems. The basic treatment for them is behavior change people have to do something. Those who are troubled by obesity must lose weight. Those whose cholesterol is too high must change the way they eat they must stop eating meat, cheese, and eggs.
The church must convey the message that God is willing to help people lose weight. That He will help those with high cholesterol stick to their diets. That He will help the flabby to exercise faithfully. But-many pastors are themselves out of shape. The failure to do what one knows is right is sin. How can a pastor who is badly out of shape presume credibility when dispensing advice for this life or.the next?
There is a seven-step model of behavior change that works well in smoking and weight management, and will work for changing other behaviors, also. This model starts with the assumption that God is willing to help all who come to Him, whether or not they have a belief system or a basic Christian orientation. God's help is available to all who are willing to meet certain simple, reasonable conditions.
1. We must acknowledge our inability to change ourselves. God constantly calls us to a better life. We strive to live up to the image of our ideal selves that He places in our minds. The awareness of this ideal is both God's-gift and His curse. While we may experience some success, we fail to reach the high standards He upholds.
Some people tell us to lower our expectations that God accepts us just the way we are. While it is true that God accepts us in our need, it is the changes that we allow Him to make in our lives that provide the most concrete evidence that we have experienced Him.
Taking a different tack, "success" theologians and "positive thinkers" tell us to look within ourselves for the strength to accomplish the seemingly impossible. But the Bible says that self-generated change is impossible, that we must depend on God alone for salvation. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5, RSV).
We have taken the first step toward resolving our predicament when we admit that in our own strength we can never reach the ideal.
2. We must be willing to give God the credit. If God helps us lose weight, He expects that when others ask us how we did it, we will truthfully explain our in ability to change our own behavior and testify to the efficacy of His aid. He will not assist us if we are not willing to ac knowledge the true source of our success.
There is an evangelistic reason for this condition. God is reaching out to all people. Those who have overcome problems with His help offer the most convincing testimonies to His power and love. This explains why Jesus told the healed demoniac "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you" (Mark 5:19, RSV).
"We can tell how we have tested His promise, and found the promise true. We can bear witness to what we have known of the grace of Christ. This is the witness for which our Lord calls, and for want of which the world is perishing."1 Congregations are more likely to believe pastors whose lives they have seen changed.
3. We must ask God for help. This is prayer. It is enough for us to say "God, my weight is killing me and destroying my witness. I can't lose weight on my own. I need help."
Some who have made this kind of plea have been instantly and completely liberated from their problem, whether it be cigarettes, overeating, illicit sex, or alcohol. Unfortunately, it does not work this way for most.
Atheists, agnostics, and unbelievers may take this step with some skepticism. They have no practical knowledge of God and often are antagonistic to the concept of God with which they grew up. But God is willing to work with them in spite of their skepticism. And through the process they can come to know Him in a personal way. The achieving of a major life goal that had previously been unattainable is a marvel that declares divine intervention. A willingness to give God a try isn't much in the way of faith, but it is enough to allow God to work with a person and in doing so, to provide proof that He exists and can accomplish the impossible.
4. We must attempt to do what we want to do. Many fail to make lasting change because they fail to take this step. Some just "let go and let God." Those who are passive at this point will fail. We must act. We must behave as if we can do just what we want to do.
In a way this is pretending, because frustrating experience has taught us that we cannot accomplish our goals in our own strength. But as we experience God's strength in our lives, we will take this step with ever-increasing confidence. We will know that He can and will help us conquer both hereditary and acquired tendencies to evil.
Many who are successfully conquering life's problems with God's help are perplexed because their old failings still tempt them and they tend to fall back into the old behaviors. But as long as we live, we will have urges to return to our old ways. Cravings for cigarettes or the urge to satisfy our desires for food, sex, power, or money in the wrong way will be strong and may arise many times a day. Such snares do not mean that God is not working with us. On the contrary, God allows temptations to assail us for several reasons.
One reason is that words are cheap. Not all who cry "Lord, Lord" will receive God's help. A woman.smoker once said that for 20 years she had been asking God to help her stop smoking. "He hasn't done it yet," she said. She wanted God to do it all and wasn't willing to do her part.
We cannot change our behavior on our own. But God works only as we work. If we go through the motions one more time, trying to accomplish what we haven't been able to do in the past but this time with the promise and hope of God's help—God will supply our lack and will bring us the success we desire. God measures the genuineness of our desire for His help by the intensity of our attempts to accomplish our goals.
This is not salvation by works. We must remain painfully aware of our failures and of our inability to accomplish what we know we should. In striving to overcome as we ask God's help, we are merely using the talents God has given us to cooperate with His infinite strength in accomplishing His will. When we succeed in this way, we will not boast of our accomplishment. Instead, we will point with pride to our God, who works with and strengthens our human weakness, empowering us to overcome.
Ellen G. White says: "The work of gaining salvation is one of co-partnership, a joint operation. There is to be cooperation between God and the repentant sinner. This is necessary for the formation of right principles in the character. Man is to make earnest efforts to overcome that which hinders him from attaining to perfection. But he is wholly dependent upon God for success. Human effort of itself is not sufficient. Without the aid of divine power it avails nothing. God works and man works. Resistance of temptation must come from man, who must draw his power from God. On the one side there is infinite wisdom, compassion, and power; on the other, weakness, sinfulness, absolute helplessness."2
Fortunately, the frequency and intensity of temptation decrease with each day that we live successfully in God's strength. The growing confidence that in Christ we can overcome soon replaces the desperate struggle we experience at first.
5. We must be thankful. It is by cultivating an attitude of thankfulness that we can most easily maintain the growing confidence that comes to us. Without thankfulness, uncertainty creeps in. We lose our perspective as to what is our role and what is God's.
A man who had quit smoking relapsed after four or five weeks, saying "I knew it wouldn't last." He had been living with a sense of impending failure. Thankfulness would have kept this from happening. Cultivating a sense of what God's work in our lives has wrought raises a good defense against such pessimism.
The one who is overweight may have a long way to go, but a day without over eating is success. Though we may realize that we are often close to failure, when we don't slip into our old ways we can thank God for the success we have experienced up to this point. We are achieving what we want, and God is doing it with us and for us.
6. We must maintain a long-term relationship with God. There is no reason to relapse into our old ways ever again. Unfortunately, relapses often dog our lives. This usually occurs when we forget or deliberately ignore God. Such relapses represent failures on our part, not on God's. A woman who, with God's help, was losing weight once said, "Losing weight with God's help is discouraging. If I don't talk with God all during the morning, I tend to graze and snack. The same is true at noon and again in the afternoon and evening. If I don't talk with God all the time, this just doesn't work."
What a marvelous insight! It certainly affirms the Bible's instruction to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). We can succeed only as long as we maintain a relationship with God. We fail if we decide that now that God has given us a measure of success, .we can keep it up on our own. If we use God for a "jump start" rather than for continuous power, failure is certain.
But if (and when) we fail, we must not give up. Instead, we must try again. The more we trust in God and the less we trust in our own strength, the more success we will enjoy.
7. We must go to work on the next problem. Having, through the Lord's strength, successfully dealt, with one problem, we have a practical working model of Christianity that we can apply to other problems. The process of identifying and overcoming the succession of problems that come to our attention comprises much of the Christian life.
Some problems are more easily over come than are others. Some require only a few days of effort. Others may take years. And the sequence in which problems are to be solved varies from person to person. This is why some genuine Christians still smoke, some still use alcohol, and some overeat.
One can easily recognize overcomers, however. They rejoice in what God is doing in their lives. They speak of victories gained and of current struggles, and seek both to encourage their fellow Christians and to benefit from their support.
We need not judge one another regarding the unsolved problems we may see in one another's lives. We know that God will continue to lead us each individually at the pace we can best travel.
Our relationship with God is faulty if we are not undergoing behavior change. And the fundamental beliefs of the church are a meaningless burden to one who does not have a practical, overcoming Christian experience. When we are maintaining our relationship with God, He continuously changes our lives, assisting us toward the goal of Christlikeness.
When we are helping others establish a Christian experience, we must realize that it takes weeks and often months to nurture them in this fundamental process. In discipling new believers, we should make sure that they know Jesus as a life-changing Saviour before leading them into other matters. We may be able to get them to concur to our distinctive doctrines before they have entered into such a relationship with Jesus, but such knowledge is useless without the relationship.
Unfortunately, a grasp of our doctrines seems to be the only major qualification for baptism today. But baptism does not confer salvation upon a soul. Some may administer it to people who have a nonworking pseudofaith in which "God does it all"—who have experienced no measurable change. In some cases baptism merely means that the person baptized has accepted the doctrines as being correct.
Along with its baptismal goals the church needs to emphasize the bringing of people into a working relationship with the Lord. Rediscovering the correct role of the health message will help here. Health evangelism meets people where they know they need to be changed. It deals with life's everyday problems. It introduces people to God as one who solves personal problems and who brings about measurable change. Even the skeptical will try God when they are desperate enough; when they realize their inability to change themselves.
Let's get back to the business of saving people from their sins. Some who come to know God as one who helps them with their pressing needs will want to learn of deeper things. Baptisms will result as these seekers come to a full understanding of the beauty of our distinctive doctrines. We should be more concerned to lead individuals into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ than to teach them our doctrines—though there is an important place for both.
The health message needs the gospel to keep it focused on its primary purpose—to show people the way to real change. The evangelistic effort of the church needs the health message to keep it practical and down on a level where those who are struggling with addictions, habits, and problems can find real solutions. Seventh-day Adventists have the opportunity of placing the science of salvation in its true, life-changing light.
1. Ellen O. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1940), p. 340.
2. ______, The Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 482.
