How Can I Be A Better Person?

Like you, I have made so many attempts at improving in areas of my life. I struggle with patience with certain people – someone put a hand over my family’s mouths at this point. If I know anything about anything, I imagine you have your struggles as well.

The Bible offers you some weapons of how to improve yourself. They are often overlooked; let’s discover the rich spiritual resources of Colossians 3:5-17.

1. Don’t Try to Be a Good Person

Your biggest failure in trying to be a good person is you’re JUST trying to be a good person. You think the shortest path to being a better person is JUST to try to be a better person. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were told in school that the quickest path between two points is a straight line. What may be true in geometry, isn’t true in right and wrong. The quickest way to repeated moral failure is to only try to do the right thing.

1.1 A Little Experiment

How good of a person are you really? I want you to really do something for me for one week: don’t gossip, don’t defend yourself, and don’t brag. In other words, say nothing bad about anybody else, never defend yourself, and don’t brag. You just try that for a week and just see how easy it is. Again, the quickest way to repeated moral failure is to only try to do the right thing.

Look at the link beginning in verse 3: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Compare this to verse 5: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

Here’s how the Bible argues: Because you have experienced a death, now you must part of you to death. If you want to be a better person, you must experience a death. Some part of you must die. Why must a part of you die? Because you lack the power to be a better person.

Look back at Colossians 2:23 with me: “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23).

Talking about the word, flesh, when the Bible says, “kill the flesh” or “war against the flesh,” it’s not talking about your body. Usually, when the Bible talks about the flesh versus the spirit, the flesh is Self. It’s the “old” man. The flesh is when your inside thermostat is set for selfishness and against God.

1.2 Tied to the Mast

Do you know the story of Odysseus of ancient Greek mythology? Odysseus wanted to hear the Siren’s song, the song of a dangerous creature that lured nearby sailors with enchanting music to their deaths. The Siren’s song was notorious in Greek mythology of bringing sailors into cliffs and rocks where they would capsize their ship. So Odysseus made a pact because he wanted to hear the beautiful Siren’s songs but he knew it would render him incapable of rational thought. So he had the men of the ship put wax in their ears so they couldn’t hear the enchanting music. Then he had the men to tie him to the mast – Odysseus was physically tied to the mast with his men surrounding him with drawn swords if he managed to break free. You cannot simply try to be a good person because you don’t know the power of the Siren’s Song.

Jesus described sin’s seductive power when He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Jesus says you’re controlled by your ambitions, your own lusts, your own ego, and your own pride. The Bible says all of us are sinners. Your sins, the Bible says, have a life of their own. They’ll come get you. Salves don’t free themselves. You must experience a death to be a better person. Like Odysseus, you have to realize you lack the power to be a better person.

Anyone who thinks that doing the right thing is as simple as JUST doing the right thing is naïve at best. Your path to be better has to take a detour. You have to go to by Calvary before you can truly be a good person. If you understand the gospel (that Jesus Christ has covered your sins and he actually is your Savior) that means God doesn’t accept you because of your efforts but because of what Jesus has done.

Let the Apostle Paul show us…

Back in verse 2, he told us to live with a specific focus: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). Compare this to verse 5: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).