Hebrews 7:12
For the priesthood being changed of necessity there is also a change of the law.
God doesn't change....
He is a constant in a world that is ever changing.
The Trinity....
God the Father...
God the Son....
God the Holy Spirit...
is the one sure foundation truth that can be counted as always being there. Never swayed by public opinion, good or bad, God seeks only His will to be carried out amid the turmoil that we humans live in. Life changes as we grow older. Society changes as the new generation takes the place of the older. God never changes and His call remains constant.
I found myself in a state of change yesterday. I'll be the first to admit that I do not welcome change into the rut I live in. I love order and sameness when it comes to life. I do recognize that change is a part of life, and I try to move with it when it happens. Still though, I don't like it. I guess you could say that I accept it, but I tend to go kicking and screaming into change.
The chapel at Rapha has been a part of my life for the past 17 years. I taught classes in that chapel. I gave sermons and messages in that room. I have prayed for more people than I can remember in that room. We saw salvation come to folks in that little chapel. People were healed, and we saw more than one delivered from demonic oppression.
SO it was hard for me to see the chapel gutted and cleared so it can be renovated.
Of course such things are within the rights of the people who own the treatment center, but I felt as though part of my own life was being ripped up and thrown into the yard, just like the stage that they took out from the front of the room.
But in the midst of all the construction, God spoke to me. "Michael....it is just a place. It is just a place where you saw me work, move, touch and heal. Let it go and move on, there are others who need to experience the same thing." I am to celebrate what took place in that room, but realize that each day, each moment is an opportunity to experience something new from God. I learn about myself through the change. I get an opportunity to glimpse my character and attitudes that have formed. Like that chapel, God gives me an opportunity, each day, to be renovated into the son that He desires me to be. Be grateful for all the memories, good and bad, yet move on with Christ. Rip out the complacent.....tear out the apathy......remove the bad character traits....and have them all replaced under the tender hand of the Holy Spirit.
I imagine the apostle Paul had to deal with change in his life. One time zealot and pharisee, now converted to the very belief's that he sought out to destroy and wipe from the face of the earth. Paul took the change and move forward with it.
David, son of Jesse, spent his early years tending his fathers flocks. Warding off lions and bears (oh my!) David never saw himself occupying the role as King over his nation. But through a series of changes that David experienced, that is exactly what happened.
Moses spent 40 years in the palaces of Egypt, living in royalty. After killing an Egyptian, Moses goes on the run and winds up in the land of Midian. There he spends another 40 years being husband, father, and a shepherd. Has an encounter with God and then spends the next 40 years wandering around the desert leading God's people, the Hebrews, to land that has been promised to them by God. Change to max for Moses life.
One thing that makes change so hard is that we seek to make a comfortable place in which to live. Now I'm not trying to be anti-comfort toward anyone. I have "My" chair and "My" bed, I like comfort as much as the next fellow. But with comfort comes a subtle love for our lifestyle, and sometimes that love takes precedent over whatever God may be calling us to participate in. We hold onto the comfort more than we should. It is easy to rationalize that we have worked hard and therefore deserve to be comfortable. We can convince ourselves that God's call to follow would never involve uprooting our schedule and make ourselves available to His schedule. But it does....God's call takes precedent over everything in my life (or at least it should).
Rest assured that whatever change God has in store for you, will be followed by ample Grace to carry it out. Such is the ways of the Kingdom.
Merry Christmas from the "B's" in Attalla.
God on you...
mb
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