I am the Lord, and I do not change. [Malachi 3:6a (NLT)]
Our fast-paced world is ever-changing and once ordinary items like slide rules, cassette tapes, boom boxes, floppy discs, dial phones, film, and VCRs are relics. My kids don’t use maps, write checks, or have a land line and my grands have never used a library card catalogue, set of encyclopedias, dictionary, carbon paper, or typewriter. We no longer need to get up to change channels, turn the lights on or off, or see who’s at the door. Our camera, maps, calculator, credit cards, compass, note pad, address book, plane tickets, and Bible all fit into our cell phones and everything on our phones (along with a fitness tracker and heart monitor) fits into a watch!
The world is in a constant state of flux! 38 different models of the iPhone have been released since its introduction in 2007 (with a new generation expected in the fall)! Since its introduction in 1985, there have been 49 versions of the Windows operating system. What with chatbots, artificial intelligence, the metaverse and internet of things, chatbots, NFTs, cryptocurrency, 3-D printers, and reality that can be extended, augmented, or virtual, by the time I’ve caught up to the latest technology, I’m already behind the times!
In theory, all those changes are supposed to be for the better but new doesn’t necessarily mean better (as the Coca-Cola company learned when they tried to change their drink formula in 1985). Unfortunately, the updated and improved version can be worse than its predecessor (which is what most tech people would say about Windows ME, Vista, and Windows 8)!
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “The only thing constant is change,” and, despite my previous rant, I disagree. The one unchanging constant in our lives is God and His unchangeability is called immutability. Unlike things that can be modified like iPhones, Windows, and Coke, something immutable cannot change. Regardless of technology, innovative trends, style, or the passage of time, God’s truth, purpose, promises, and character remain the same. God needs no updates because He is the very essence of perfection—He can’t become more or less, greater or smaller, or any better than He already is!
God’s immutability doesn’t mean that He is a static, impersonal, remote, disinterested being. Although He is unchanging, we are not deists who think of God as an indifferent uninvolved clockmaker who made a clock, wound it up, and then ignored it. He is actively involved in all of His creation and regularly interacts with everything and everyone in it.
Rather than impassive and distant, God is enmeshed in our lives. He walked and talked with Adam and cared enough to give him a companion in Eve! He made covenants with Noah and Abraham and revealed Himself to people like Moses, David, Elijah, Paul, Peter, and John. The God who walked in Eden with Adam, hung a rainbow in the sky for Noah, wrestled with Jacob, etched His law onto stone tablets for Moses, sent manna from heaven, and blinded Paul on the road to Damascus is the very same God who walks with us today!
Although God’s interaction with us may change (as it did when He evicted Adam and Eve from Eden, permitted Satan to plague Job, or allowed Judah to be taken into captivity), God’s nature never changes! Timeless and eternal, God was and always will be holy, unlimited, all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing, all-loving, and divine. Fortunately, the original 1.01 version of God (introduced at the beginning of time) is all we need or want! Thank you, O Lord, for being the one constant in our lives.
It is well for us that, amidst all the variableness of life, there is One whom change cannot affect; One whose heart can never alter, and on whose brow mutability can make no furrows. [Charles Spurgeon]
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. [Hebrews 13:8 (NLT)]
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. [James 1:17 (NLT)]
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As a way of emphasizing the penitential nature of Lent, hymns with alleluia or hallelujah were not sung at our church during Lent’s forty days. With the exception of Palm Sunday’s All Glory, Laud, and Honor, the hymns for the last six weeks were rather slow, somber, and introspective and I missed the more joyful upbeat hymns I enjoy. Easter service, however, opened with Christ the Lord is Risen Today and the twenty “Alleluias” we sang in five verses made up for their long absence.
Judas wasn’t the only one who betrayed Jesus that Thursday night. With his three denials, Peter also betrayed our Lord. Both men were filled with remorse but neither man could undo what had been done. One never lost faith and hung in there; the other lost faith and hung himself. One stayed around for the resurrection to see the living Christ and to experience Jesus’ forgiveness; the other missed his opportunity for redemption when he gave up all hope. One became the humble willing servant of the Lord and the rock of the church; the other one’s name lives on in ignominy and is synonymous with betrayal and treason.
There is a fancy term for how God the Son, Jesus, took on human form and yet remained God: hypostatic union. Sounding like why my socks cling to my t-shirts in the dryer, knowing the term doesn’t help us understand it. I’m not sure anyone can wholly comprehend how Jesus always existed and yet was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary, and became man. When pondering Christ’s incarnation, I can’t help but think of an old ad for Certs Mints. Since they were both a breath mint and a candy mint, their commercials ended with the catch phrase: “Certs is two, two, two mints in one!” Fully man and fully God at the same time, Jesus, like Certs, had two distinct natures in one.
As one of three pilgrimage feasts requiring every Jewish man’s attendance in Jerusalem, Jesus and the disciples joined other pilgrims on their journey toward the city for the Passover celebration. By the time they passed through Jericho (where He healed the blind Bartimaeus and ate dinner with Zacchaeus), a large crowd was following Jesus. It was on a Sunday that He and His disciples left Bethany for the two-mile walk into Jerusalem. The roads would have been crowded as pilgrims streamed into the city in preparation for the festival. Having heard of Jesus’ miracles and the way He brought Lazarus out of the grave, many of those in the streets were anxious to see Him. ”Could this be the long-awaited Messiah?” they wondered.
A pastor friend told me about returning from a service project with some of his SK8 church youth including Brian, a young man new to the faith. When they stopped for lunch at a taco stand, a street person asked Brian for money. Trying to do what Jesus would want done, the new Christian offered to buy the hard-up man a burrito. It was when Brian ordered two bean burritos that his dining guest loudly complained, “I ain’t eatin’ no $%2#!* bean burrito—I want a steak one!” Brian had little money to spare but, since the man was getting vociferous, he ordered the steak burrito for his guest and a bean one for himself. Apparently, the vagrant wasn’t familiar with the proverbs about beggars not being choosers, half a loaf being better than none, and not looking a gift horse in the mouth!
Devotions of the Heart 