September 25
September 25
The truth that God does not change is a rock of hope for his children living in an ever-changing world.
We have six grandchildren, and we have a hard time keeping up with them. Just about when we have adjusted to the stage one grandchild is in, she grows out of it and moves on. So it is with everything in our lives. Nothing in life remains the same. Our physical bodies surely don’t remain the same. Sickness, accidents, and aging change us. Our marriages don’t remain the same. Young married couples become middle-aged couples, who become elderly couples, and the dynamics of the marriage change with each season. The culture around us never stays the same. The culture of the 1970s was radically different from the culture we live in today. We simply can’t look horizontally for a rock of unchanging security and hope, because everything changes. Including you.
Yet we all long for a rock to stand on, whether we know it or not. We long for something we can build our lives on that will be a firm foundation. We search for something stable upon which we can build our identity, meaning, rest of heart, and purpose. If you are looking for an unchanging, eternal rock of hope, there is only one place to look: up. In the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi, God calls his children to repent. Repentance is a change of heart that results in a change in the direction of your life. In this call to repent, God says something important about his unchangeability: “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 3:6–7).
The words here are very specific and important to understand. First, God reminds his wayward children that the only reason they have not been consumed by the fire of his anger against their sin is that he does not change. He is the same in holiness, faithfulness, and covenantal love. Because he is the same, his promises are trustworthy. But then God says, “Return to me, and I will return to you.” It sounds as though God is contradicting himself. The word return implies change. Here’s what God is saying: “I am the unchanging God, who changes.” Even more confused? Let me clarify. God’s character remains eternally unchanged. Who he has been, he is and ever will be. But from our perspective his actions and responses toward his children change. We find eternal rest in the fact that God never changes, and constant comfort in the fact that he responds to our prayers for help, our confession of sin, and our commitment to turn. In the face of our repentance, our Lord turns in mercy away from threatening discipline and responds to us with forgiving grace.
It is such a good thing that our Lord is both eternally unchanging and constantly responsive to his children. Because he is, he is our place of eternal rest and right-here, right-now hope.