God Is an Agent of Change
In the present world we are perplexed as we are unable to make proper decisions. But when God becomes our guide; the Bible assures us that we will hear the voice behind us saying “this is the way. Walk in it”(Isaiah 30:21)He even instructs and teaches us in the way we should go (psalm 32:8) God says in Isaiah 43:19 “I am going to do something new. It is already happening. Don't you recognize it? I will clear a way in the desert. I will make rivers on dry land.”
For God to fulfill that promise in Isaiah, He has to bring about change. When God does a new thing that means that there are changes about to happen. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift from God” That's why we call it the "present" Bible says “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it “The Lord did not grant us another day on earth to worry and anxious about what was going to happen next. He gave it to us to rejoice and be glad in Him and be productive in whatever way we could because each day is a gift from God. His promise is that He would never forsake us. God’s grace pours out to all who will trust Him. You don’t have to earn it. You just have to be in relationship with Him to receive His grace. How then do we experience God’s grace? We come to the Lord in our weakness, in our inability, in our sin and in our failure. We choose to believe His love and ability to change us, as we rest in His grace. The result is that we grow.
2 Peter 3:18 says, “We grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul put it like this in Romans 12:2: "Don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." What he is saying is repent--don't be like the people around you but be totally changed by thinking new thoughts. We must be transformed--totally changed in the way we live our lives.
The first message Jesus preached was found in Matthew 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Repent means to change and turn your life around, to put off the "old man" and the ways of the flesh and to put on the "new man" and the character of God. It means to change the way you think, to change the things you say, and to change the way you act. Repentance is the life-long process of conforming our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions to the kingdom of God. Jesus taught us to pray to God, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." and that is nothing less than God's will being done on earth just like it is in Heaven. Now we, as individuals cannot bring the world, or our country, or our city, or our neighborhood, or even our family and friends to do the will or God--but we can begin to do God's will ourselves. That is repentance--to stop doing our will and the will of our society and to begin to do God's will instead.
True repentance is necessary for salvation; not merely sorrow that one's sins are known, but total transformation and knowledge that all sin is detested by a pure and holy God; a knowledge that our sins are against God, as well as others. True repentance causes us such contrition, such Godly sorrow, that we are willing to turn away from our sin, to go in the opposite direction. The most dangerous trend of the twenty first century is the religion without God, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without morals, and Heaven without Hell."
In Matt. 16:24, Jesus said “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Deny himself... not indulge all his earthly desires. Putting aside one's own thoughts, wants, and even needs, to follow Jesus. The message of Jesus addressed the deepest need any person will ever have and that is precisely why Jesus came. He said, in Luke 19:10: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." The greatest need any person ever has is the need for salvation. But there can be no salvation without repentance.
On the cross, Jesus died for our sin, for our badness. We were guilty and He paid for the guilt. When we confess our sins, we are taking care of what is wrong and what the cross already pays for. Being a man or woman of God is a matter of being humble and truthful about our sin and accepting His grace and growing. John Powell said this, “We think we have to change, grow and be good in order to be loved. But rather we are loved and we receive His grace so we can change, grow and be good.” The only limit to healing in our lives is the degree to which we don’t reveal ourselves. To grow we must hold a commitment to what is true. God’s grace gives us the freedom to face God and face the truth about us in the light of God’s Word. Knowing we are fully loved and accepted by Him, He calls us to come to Him with everything so that He can help us experience freedom (John 8:32) and a more abundant life (John 10:10). And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
However, God Does not Change
The last election in our country was all about change, and change is certainly taking place. I have never seen change occurring at such a rapid pace as I have seen in the past few years. But in a changing world, we have a changeless Savior who is still “the way, the truth, and the life.” He is still the only means of forgiveness of sins and our only assurance of spending eternity in heaven. He is still seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, and preparing a heavenly city in which every one of His blood-bought children will dwell for all eternity. Though false leaders arise and godly leaders pass away, our Great High Priest leads forever as He who is perfect and changeless.
Malachi 3:6 says “For I, the Lord, do not change...” God is the same God as He has always been and always will be. One of the attributes of God is that He is Immutable... meaning that He never changes. God is the only person or thing that is not subject to change. His nature never changes.
Hebrews 13:8, says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” by yesterday is meant all time past; by today, the time present; and by forever all that is future, from the present time to eternity. Christ is thus unchangeable in two respects. I. In his divine nature. As Christ is one of the persons of the Trinity, he is God, and so has the divine nature, or the Godhead dwelling in him, and all the divine attributes belong to him, of which immutability or unchangeableness is one. II. Christ is unchangeable in his office. He is unchangeable as the Mediator and Savior of his church and people. Christ is the only Mediator between God and man, which ever shall be. He is an everlasting Savior. What distinguishes God from man is that man often changes his mind because he cannot foresee all that is coming, but God, on the other hand, always foresees what is coming and changes his mind only in response to that foreseen situation. So there is a kind of changelessness in God that is not in man.
The most significant thing to notice in these verses is that the writer to the Hebrews 1:8-12 says But about the Son he says,” Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”
God says to his Son, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" (verse 8). Therefore, the writer ascribes to him the work of creating the universe. "The heavens are the work of Your hands" (verse 10). And then he draws out the implication in verse 12: the creation, which seems so stable and permanent and changeless, will, in fact, "be changed like a garment," but "you are the same, and your years will not come to an end." So the sameness of Jesus Christ is the sameness that comes from being the eternal God. As Hebrews 1:3 says, "He [Christ] is the radiance of His [God's] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power." So his sameness is the sameness of God. His unchangingness is the unchangingness of God. The visible universe with all its laws that scientists bank on so heavily to be unchanging is like a shirt compared to God: it was put on at creation, and it will be taken off when God is through with it. So what the world regards as the baseline of stability is not. God is. And Jesus Christ is God.
How should we think and feel and act about changes in seasons and Times? Hebrews 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Perfection does not need change; only imperfection does. Our Lord is the perfect High Priest. If Jesus Christ does not change, then He must be God, for God does not change. And if He will never change, then His work, in addition to His person, is perfect. And if He is both perfect and changeless, then all of His work, His promises, His purposes, His provisions, and His protection are certain and secure. No wonder the author can speak of an unshakable kingdom that awaits us. Having an unshakable kingdom, founded and secured by a perfect and unchanging Great High Priest, gives us every reason to finish the race set before us with endurance, knowing that He is the author and finisher of our faith. Or, as the writer to the Hebrews put it elsewhere, In the same way God wanted to demonstrate more clearly to the heirs of the promise that his purpose was unchangeable, and so he intervened with an oath, so that we who have found refuge in him may find strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things, since it is impossible for God to lie. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain, where Jesus our forerunner entered on our behalf, since he became a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:17-20).So since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks, and through this let us offer worship pleasing to God in devotion and awe. (Hebrews 12:28-29). Having an unshakable kingdom, founded and secured by a perfect and unchanging Great High Priest, gives us every reason to finish the race set before us with endurance, knowing that He is the author and finisher of our faith.
