PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• In the week leading up to Daylight Savings Time, social media memes come out in full force. If I see the cheesy “If I Could Turn Back Time / Cher it Forward” meme one more time, I’m going to scream. I think it’s been in my feed 20 times a day for the last week. But one thing is certain… people don’t like DST. Even with the promise of that extra hour of sleep, people do not like their clocks being changed. From the inconvenience factor to the primary argument about things getting dark at 5 PM… people don’t want the rules of time changed.
I wish people were this defensive over the Word of God.
As I see it, our culture keeps picking at the Holy Bible, trying to make changes to what is and is not relevant. I’m not going to get into the list of issues, but you know what they are. People want to remove what they deem “offensive” or call it irrelevant in our more “enlightened” and “inclusive” society. They want to discredit the holiest of books and rewrite it to suit their purposes. The arrogance to think we have the authority to change the Word of God is staggering.
I could go with the obvious Scripture choice to make my point:
* The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8 ESV)
* For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)
But I want to look at things a little different. Let’s start with Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (ESV). This verse doesn’t require any clarification. It’s pretty straight forward. We can count on Jesus to be the same every single day. He doesn’t change.
Okay, now let’s go back a few books to John 1:1-2, 14 ESV, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” So Jesus who does not change was the Word who has been God since the beginning. He is eternal. And yet, as the Son of God, He took on humanity and came to earth.
Now, let’s go back to Isaiah 40:8 and Hebrews 4:12. If Jesus IS the Word and He does not change, and according to Isaiah, the Word of God stands forever… and according to Hebrews, the Word of God is living and active… what we have is the rock-solid truth that Jesus is the living, active, never-changing Word of God who is still relevant. As is. No changes needed.
We can either defend that truth by taking God at His Word or we can be Cafeteria Christians who cherry-pick what we believe. The mistake we make is thinking we have to agree with everything in the Bible. It’s not up to us to agree with it. God has already told us that His ways and thoughts are different and higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
But therein lies much of the problem we face these days… we think we have to agree with everyone we come in contact with or we are “enemies.” That’s another topic, but it’s what the heart of the matter boils down to. We think our way is the right way and we want everyone, including God, to buy into our ideas.
Friends, it’s not going to happen. And we as Christians need to be bold enough to accept Gods Word as the final authority, whether we understand His reasons or not. Just as the clay cannot tell the Potter what to do, so can we not tell God what should change about His word (Isaiah 45:9).
Today, as you pray, thank Jesus for being the timeless, never-changing Word! Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a spirit of obedience to the authority of Scripture, accepting that He understands a picture bigger than you can see.
