|
|
 |
| Got
Change? |
|
| Bubba
Garner |
|
I
distinctly remember a conversation with a classmate when I was a senior in
high school. Her father was running for a new seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives that had opened up in our district. I considered him a
good man and was disappointed that he shared his political party’s view
on several issues, including abortion and homosexuality. When she asked if
I would help campaign for him, I told her what I believed the Bible taught
on such matters, which explained how I couldn’t support him, which
further explained why I wasn’t going to vote for him! She balked at my
“old fashioned” views and said that I needed to “get in the
nineties.”
We live in a changing world—a
fast changing world at that. Clothes that were in style at this time last
year are now in boxes or garage sales. Computers that were on the
cutting-edge of technology six months ago are now ancient and outdated.
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” (James
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” (Isaiah 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 to the way of salvation. We need the
kind that seeks for personal growth, the kind of change that’s for the
better.
|
|
Copyright (C)
2008
Southside Church of Christ
All rights reserved.
|
|
|
