Fashions change. Avocado bathroom suites are no longer the rage. The trousers and tank tops I wore in the 1970s would be ridiculed today. Music changes. I’m not as familiar with current chart music as I was 40 years ago. By the same token, some people don’t have the same appreciation as I do for the classics of the 1970s and 1980s! As we get older, things don’t work as well as they used to. Things wear out. Infections evolve to resist the antibiotics that we have developed, so that we need to keep looking for better drugs. Public perceptions of morality change. Things that were unacceptable a few years ago are now not only acceptable but to be welcomed. Or at least that’s the “politically correct” view.
Is change a good thing or a bad thing? A family member just celebrated his 100th birthday and it was fascinating to read through an enormous list of inventions from his lifetime, things that we believe we couldn’t possibly do without or that enhance our lives. Where would we be if things just stayed the same?
Change can literally be re-freshing. It’s good to move things around, to develop new skills, to meet new people, to visit new places, to get new perspectives. After all, change brings life. Or is it the other way round? Or both?
However, it’s good to have things that don’t change, that are fixed or permanent, such as cairns on a mountain, mathematical truths, a “moral compass”.
One thing that doesn’t change is our ability to get things wrong, every one of us, whether in the privacy of our individual lives, our families, our workplaces, our communities or on the global stage. We all mess up! So, is there a new, better solution for our ills and problems? Do we need to find new ways to deal with the problem of sin?
The good news is that God is unchangeable and his remedy for sin is unchanging and as powerful as ever it was. Strange as it may seem, the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross, has lost none of its power to wash away everything in our lives that isn’t right and enable us to have a relationship with Him. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever – just turn to Him and let Him change your life.
Andy Osborne
King’s Lynn Christian Fellowship