Listen to Nancy answer the Question: Does God Change?, on Moody Radio
New year celebrations are now over, and many of us are making resolutions for healthy personal change. We resolve to lose weight, exercise regularly, and be more patient, with our goal being that change will be our new normal. Changing to healthy habits are not easy for us. Most of us are back to our old ways in a few weeks. Change that comes from pressure to abandon our moral value system, faith beliefs, and ethics can be life changing in an extremely unhealthy way. It happens every day through media, social media, school, business and our own desire to fit into a godless culture. The fallout is disastrous. Fellowship with God is broken, our witness for Christ is gone, and our focus is all about ourselves which leads to sin.
God, however, is perfect in all ways. His holiness keeps Him from giving in to sinful pressures of this world. God cannot become better at anything. He can’t make a bad decision and never has to apologize. God never changes; He is immutable. Nothing about Him changes. His character traits of wisdom, truth, goodness, love, grace, mercy, kindness, justice, righteousness, and peacefulness always exist in perfection. God has different methods in dealing with human issues, but He never has, nor will He ever, compromise His nature.
“I, the Lord, never change” (Malachi 3:6).
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
God created us in His image to choose to love and obey Him or reject Him. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were sinless and designed to live forever. God gave them a choice to believe Him or believe Satan; they sinned and chose Satan. The penalty for sin is death, not only the end of a relationship with God but a physical death that leads to eternal anguish. Everything changed for them. Adam and Eve could no longer live in the garden, their connection with God was broken, and they would die. All those who came after Adam and Eve would be born with a sinful nature.
Even when we sin, God’s love for us does not waver. He stayed true to His promise to send His one and only Son to die for all in order to restore His relationship with all humanity. His love for humanity and desire for fellowship with them will never change. His death and resurrection redeem us from our sin. No matter how hard we try to be good or make healthy changes to be right with God, we will always fail because only God can pay the price to restore us to Himself. When we believe in Jesus, He changes us in the most remarkable ways.
“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:23-25).
“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:8-11).
As believers in Jesus, our lives change. Our focus is no longer about pleasing ourselves or others, but on bringing glory to God through our words and actions. No longer are we ruled by a godless culture, but by the Holy Spirit. We can, with assurance, know that when we die, we will live forever with God in Heaven. Why? Because we know that God is true to His Word. He never changes.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
Living out Christ is not easy. Satan, the godless culture, and our old sin nature work against us. When we choose to put our hope and trust in God, and not ourselves, we will change for the good through the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. His promises in His Word are true. We can trust Him! Only God, can give us hope and courage to live life with joy, and peace and love.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18).