God Changes Us

Have you ever wanted someone else to change?  Whilst our motivation can be anything but pure, there can be very good reasons to desire to shift the perspectives of others, for them to cease destructive behaviours, to recognise and acknowledge their faults or take responsibility for their decisions.  I have learned a truth which prevents me from worry, fears, schemes and manipulation:  I cannot change the heart or mind of anyone else.  Many times we would be content with areas of reformation when God aims at nothing less than supernatural transformation.  My rest, hope and confidence is not in a person changing but in God's goodness and power to accomplish His will in His time.

I imagine there are times our desire to see someone else change directly correlates with our stubbornness to resist changing ourselves.  And here is the rub:  even should we agree to and want to change, we find ourselves incapable of the willpower, discipline or strength to do so.  Anyone can, for a season, modify their behaviour or habits.  A big takeaway from what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount is the only way I can see clearly to remove the speck from my brother's eye is to remove the log from my own first.  My judgment will always be faulty until I first submit before God in faith and obedience.  I must be the first to change.  A husband who identifies a need in his wife to change needs to realise God plans to change him more than he can fathom, and God might employ the process and time to further His divine work and purposes in him.  I am convinced there is more work God wants to do in the heart of one who knows Him than all the faults and inconsistencies in others you become aware of.

The only One who does not need to change is the God who is immutable and already perfect in all His ways!  Think of all the ways God changed people who trusted in Him:  He changed their names.  Abram became Abraham and Sarai become Sarah.  Through faith in God Abraham and Sarah had a son in their old age named Isaac.  Physical deadness and barrenness made way for new life and the birth of the Hebrew nation.  By faith in God Jacob became Israel, Moses tended his father-in-law's sheep and was chosen to deliver the Hebrews from Egypt, and David was taken from the sheepfold and made king over Israel.  What can be overlooked is the fundamental change God worked in the hearts, minds and character of God's people over decades.  Going from tending sheep to governing God's people was insignificant compared to the work of the Holy Spirit did within David as a sheep of God's pasture.  God turned Saul of Tarsus the Pharisee to Paul the apostle and bondservant of Jesus Christ.  God changed names, caused people to be born again with new hearts, and changed their eternal destination from hell to heaven.

When we are born again by faith in Jesus Christ, we are changed on the inside and our lives are in the ongoing process of submission to God.  2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."  Our relationship with God results in transformation we humble ourselves to embrace.  And guess what?  When our lives on earth reach their divinely ordained conclusion, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 says we will be changed:  "Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."  No matter how much we change on this earth, our bodies will remain corruptible.  A day is coming when this will change permanently and we will see God as He is.

Proverbs 24:21-22 says, "My son, fear the LORD and the king; do not associate with those given to change; ²² for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin those two can bring?"  Receiving Jesus by faith is not one change among many others but is the crucial, necessary relationship for all other good changes God desires to be possible by His grace.  As much as Israel desired to see a "change at the top" with the removal of wicked kings or desired victory over oppressive enemies, they were to remain grounded in the fear of the LORD and in submission to His rule.  No doubt there were people (like Absalom!) who started movements to resist and undermine those God placed in authority, but may that man's ruin be a warning of departing from the fear of God and working towards change by schemes and manipulation.  Be assured of this:  God desires to change me, and He desires to change you.  Acknowledging God desires to change you ought to be of infinitely greater importance than changes you desire to see in others.