Many of us are motivated to get a better qualification, job or house. As a result most people in Singapore are better off than their parents were. The drive to be better has helped us to progress as a country.

As Christians it is even more critical that we seek to be better than before. C S Lewis said he would suspect a person’s conversion was “largely imaginary” if in the new life he continued, for example, to be just as spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before.

What improvement should we see in a person’s life after he has become a Christian?

Talk alone is nothing. The devils proclaimed that Jesus is the Son of God when they encountered him on earth. Yet they remained loyal to Satan. To be believable you got to “walk the talk” as people say nowadays.

Even “religious behavior” may mean nothing. Seeking after spiritual revelations and experiences or going from Bible study to Bible study don’t mean very much unless there is a fundamental change in you.

Christ has taught us to judge a tree by its fruit. Therefore, some thing better ought to come forth from a Christian’s life since it is no longer “I but Christ who lives in me”.

As a practical measure, the new life is one that is better than before you invited Jesus to be the center of your life.

We should not really be comparing with Mr. Tan who never shouts at his wife, Mrs. Lim who is so kind, or John who seems so self-controlled. The acid test is asking someone close to you if you are better than before. More than any one else, your spouse, siblings, or parents will notice if there is a change.

How can we be better than before?

Our part is putting to death the old nature. We do this by making choices, on a moment by moment basis, that show that we belong to Jesus. And confessing to God the moment we know of sin in our life.

That is not easy but now in the new life we can count on God’s help.

Ask God to enable you to choose to do what pleases Him. Ask Him for discernment to see the situations that can become doorways to temptation and sin. Ask for wisdom to avoid these situations. And if in the first place, you don’t even desire or feel like doing things to please God, you can ask Him to work in you to give you desires that are His!

Please don’t beat yourself up if you fall down, or find that you have inadvertently taken one or two steps backwards but are still better than before.

God is so interested in your progress that in a sense the outcome has been fixed. How much more because of Jesus (what He accomplished on the cross to give you the new life) will the abundance of God’s grace and the gift of righteousness reign in your life? You really can count on becoming better than before!