For those of you who don’t usually make it to Sunday school, I want to take this month’s Pastor’s pen to let you know what we’re studying. Our overall theme is “Knowing God.” I’m using a book with that title, written by J.I. Packer, as a launch pad for discussion about what it means to know God. We’re looking at what it is we need to know about Him, what He knows about us, and what that means for every Christian. We’re not stopping there either. We then apply it to the way we live. There’s still time to come out and benefit from this study. There are seven studies left. We will finish this study the week before Palm Sunday.
One question we’ve looked at is the unchanging character of God. When you read your Bible, do you ever feel like God has changed? Do you ever think you’re living with a God who is different from the God Abram, David, the disciples, and the early Christians encountered? Of course, this can’t be true because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is unchanging!
Psalm 90:2 reads, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” It can be so hard for us to understand the eternal, unchanging nature of God since we are created beings. It’s true, we will live forever now that God has created us, but we will always be people who had a beginning. God has no beginning, which means He is NOT created. As the Psalmist reminds us, God is from everlasting to everlasting. And that has some implications.
The author of Hebrews points out one implication when he writes in Hebrews 14:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The writer reminds us that part of God’s eternal nature is His immutability (incapable of change). As we’re learning in Sunday school, God is unchanging because of His perfection. He cannot get better or worse, He doesn’t grow older or get wiser. God has no need to change His purposes or correct His course because of anything unplanned. Every aspect of God and His plan has always been, is now, and always will be exactly how He ordained it.
What is His plan? To bring a rebellious and stubborn people to Himself. That has been His plan from the very beginning, and He is at work today still accomplishing the same thing. What does that mean? It means that you serve the same God that the disciples served. The same God that Abraham served. The same God who promised to send the Savior to Adam. And I don’t know about you, but I find that an amazing thought! The same God who created all things, the same God who walked in the garden, is now walking with every believer through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The same power that wove the plan of redemption through history is still weaving that same thread in the world today. His power and resolve are undiminished. May your desire to see His Kingdom grow also be undiminished as you, like the disciples, seek to tell your friends and neighbors about the unchanging, eternal God we know – His name is Jesus.