We live in a changing world—a fast changing world at that. Edmund Spencer once referred to it as “the living, whirling wheel of change, to which all mortal things doth sway.” Clothes that were in style at this time last year are now in garage sales and thrift stores. Computers that boasted of the latest technology six months ago now need to download the latest patches and upgrades. Things seem to come and go before we can figure out where they came from and where they went.

But fashion and technology are not the only things that are trying to keep up with the times. There is an ever-present temptation for the Christian to be more modernistic, to participate in the current fads, lifestyles, and genres of culture. Once, a lady asked me if I preached for the “old church of Christ or the new church of Christ.” That’s a pretty good commentary on how people view religion. But God is not someone who can be changed to fit our needs; we do the altering when we fit our lives to His laws.

In the midst of our changing world, we must not relinquish our hold on the unchanging hand of God. He is the same “yesterday and today, yes, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). In Him there is “no variation or shadow of turning” (Jam. 1:17). It ought to be of great comfort to know that we have a relationship with One who never needs revision, updating, or upgrading. The more things change, the more He stays the same.

And since God does not change, that which He has spoken is also eternal. Isaiah spoke of the brevity of life in contrast with the enduring word when he said, “the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever” (Isa. 40:8). The Psalmist was not interested in what was politically correct or popular with the world but appealed to the statutes and commandments of God which are “forever settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89). That means that His standard of right and wrong is as true today as when He spoke it though His prophets, through His apostles, and through His Son. And no matter how innocent the winds of change may seem, when we depart from the testimony of the Lord, we reap the whirlwind of worldliness and destruction.

Are we changing? We are if we allow the way the world thinks to affect the way we think. We are if we let what the world does influence what we do. We are if we compromise the eternal truth for things that are relative and temporary.

We need change. But we need the kind that turns the hearts of men toward the way of salvation. We need the kind that will examine the mind of God and then transform and renew his own. That’s the kind of change that’s for the better.