"Stronger Together"and "Make America Great Again" are fair slogans, ideal goals. One cannot argue with the meaning, except when being proclaimed by those whose lifestyles do not reflect the words. I'll not labor over the upcoming election as it is too weary an endeavor and there are too many opinions. And what I'd like to settle in on today is what our current president proclaimed as he ran for office, "Change We Can Believe In". Now that is a great slogan and I do not want to concentrate on how that promise has been met but I would like to give true hope as to a promise that is always safe.
In his short but deep and thought provoking book, Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer beautifully illuminates the exciting and hope-filled truth of the immutability of God in chapter nine. And in this amazing description of just one awesome attribute, he shares what God proclaims about Himself in regard to change and about us. "I am the Lord. I change not." But for us, God says, "are being transformed", "have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge". (2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10) "In Him, men of faith find at last eternal permanence. In the meanwhile change works for the children of the kingdom, not against them."
"Poets have found morbid pleasure in the law of impermanence and have sung in a minor key the song of perpetual change." (Think Leonard Cohen, an extraordinarily gifted artist but dark and without hope. Or so it seems.) "This note of sweet sorrow expressed with gentle humor gives a radiant beauty to his quatrains but, however beautiful, the whole... is sick, sick unto death...the poet is fascinated by the enemy that is destroying him."
"For human beings the possibility of redemption lies in their ability to change. To move across from one sort of person to another is the essence of repentance: the liar becomes truthful, the thief honest, the lewd pure, the proud humble.... So radical is this change that the apostle calls the man that used to be 'the old man' and the man that now is 'the new man.' When God infuses eternal life into the spirit of man, the man becomes a member of a new and higher order of being....In the working out of His redemptive processes the unchanging God makes full use of change and through a succession of changes arrives at permanence at last."
Believers have found the "cure for the great sickness". This is the message of the gospel. Christians aren't trying to get as many people into their club as possible as though this might be a greater entrance into heaven. NO! Christ alone is their hope and way to God. Christians that have truly been changed want others to experience the freedom that God has bestowed on them and the hope He has given. They are excited about the change. It is truly a change that can be believed!
Tozer expresses in his book that some of you may think Christianity as being "something that might bring a certain satisfaction to persons of a particular type of mind but can have no real significance for practical men." Yet I've heard such men speak of the good ole days with longing. And it may be that their own change in attitude toward beauty and permanence is the very reason for this lacking. What peace God offers to all through Jesus Christ to "know that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself. In coming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood. He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to love and faith. He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one. Neither does He change His mind about anything.... He never changes moods or cools off in His affections or lose enthusiasm. His attitude toward the sinner is the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
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