We can only rise in life to the level of our believing, so the level in which we are willing to believe and trust God’s Word and the promises it contains will determine the quality of our lives. In John 10:10(NKJV), our Heavenly Father set the standard for the kind of existence He wants us to have. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, tells us in this verse, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have [it] more abundantly.” This is God’s desire for each of us, that we will live abundantly as we grow closer to Him and grow stronger spiritually in Christ.
God said in Malachi 3:6(NKJV), “For I am the LORD, I do not change;” In His infinite wisdom, brilliance, and grace, our Heavenly Father has placed us inside the constraints of time, where we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. He has placed us in this bubble where change is allowed and continual. We are spiritual beings having an earth experience, and our sojourn on this planet is the grooming ground of our faith. In our minds, we have a past, present, and future; and right now, this is to our great benefit. But we must be clear that God is outside of time. He is the Great I Am. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is constant and with God, there is only the right now of the present.
God’s allegiance to the gift of free-will is magnified by His gift of time. It affords us with desperately needed opportunities for reproof and correction. During this earth experience, often, we get it wrong. Like the first couple, Adam and Eve, we sin against God and His Word. Sometimes, rather than doing what He has spoken, we choose our own path. Then, after we’ve realized what a colossal mistake we’ve made and paid the consequences for it, we go to God and repent. We seek His forgiveness, and He grants it.
1John 1:9(NLT) tells us, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” Within this portal of time, God provides us a window into His heart, because our Loving Heavenly Father forgives our sin on every occasion that we earnestly ask for it. Continually we see His hand of mercy, and we must express our gratitude to God for this continually.
1Corinthians 1:30(NLT) tells us, “God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.” Through the sacrifice of Christ, our Heavenly Father has cleansed us from all wickedness, but sometimes we behave as if we’ve forgotten that Christ has freed us from sin. We get ourselves into trouble because our sin allows the enemy a foot hole into our lives. It gives him access, and he is merciless in his attempts to disrupt our faith in God, but every time that the enemy pounces, we have an opportunity to grow stronger in Christ. Romans 5:3-6(NLT) declares, “3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. 6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”
Our God never changes, but we change all the time. We are not yet as constant in our devotion and reverence to God as we should be, but the Good News is that God has made a way through Christ for us to be corrected, to make a shift in our confessions, conversations, thoughts, and actions so we continue our journey forward and upward. We run hot and cold sometimes, but God’s love for us is a fire that never dies out. When He looks at us, He sees who He’s made us in Christ. He knows that while we’re in the bubble, we’re being perfected in our Lord and Savior, but one day we’ll be like him through and through, and what a glorious day that will be.■
Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“God Is Unchangeable”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2024. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.