How Can I Turn Over a New Leaf?

How can I get rid of my depravity and turn over a new leaf?

• Is there no way I can rid myself of this depravity? 
• Can I not free myself from it, 
• or change my dirty nature like I would change our dirty clothes? 

No, I cannot change myself. 

• I cannot decide to turn over a new leaf. 
• I can no more change my nature than a leopard can change his spots 
• or an Ethiopian the color of his skin (cf. Jeremiah 13:33). 

Yet the God's Word does not want to deny all possibility of doing good. 

• For while I cannot change myself, the Bible shows that God changes us. 
• What I cannot do, God can and does. 
• I cannot make myself clean again, but God is able to do this. 

Scripture speaks about recreation, about being born anew. 

• No one but God, who created us in the first place, can recreate us. 
• This is the work of God, the Holy Spirit.