Psalm 100:5 – For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

THEME OF THE DAY: HE CHANGES NOT. A few days ago the temperature in Southern New England was about 90 and air conditioners roared throughout the land. When I walked my dog Jake early this morning, I needed a sweatshirt. It was low 50’s and cool. I guess the saying about how fast weather changes in New England is really true, but change also is simply the nature of life under the sun. Seasons change, we change from young and vibrant to not so young and slow. We also change in our moods and spiritual lives. Hopefully, the change in our spiritual lives is progressive in the image of Christ, but often we know the other side of spiritual change. We go from fervent love for Christ to a little chilling of the heart toward Him. Oh, we don’t enjoy this negative spiritual change. In fact, the growing Christian laments, even wails out in prayer, over this battle of spiritual change. We loathe it and look forward to the day of being in an unchanged state when we may love Christ fully, perfectly, and without change, but that day is not today.

Change is the hard truth of life under the sun. The world is a changing place and such reality causes fears, stress, uncertainties, anxieties, and a host of other painful emotions. For the most part, we don’t like change. Some changes we do, but in the big scheme of things, we are creatures of habit and are quite comfortable with unchanging routines. And when it comes to comfort, security, and hope in our Lord, one of the most liberating and encouraging truths of Him is just that – His immutability or His inability to change. He is a constant in all His attributes. Our God is unchanging and that is both good news and not so good news for us. First, the “not so good news” about the unchanging nature of our God.

God is unchanging in His promises to deal with sin both in the unbeliever and His children. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Be not deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Yes, God may delay punishing the rebellious sinner and correcting His disobedient child, but don’t take His delays as indifference. God is unchanging in dealing with sin. He doesn’t overlook it and will deal with it. For unrepentant sinners who live as if there is no God, they should be very afraid. God will not allow sin to go unpunished. He must. He is unchanging in His attitude and actions against sin. What about the children of God? If we are tolerating sin, even the sin of a lukewarm heart, we, too, should be very concerned. God will not allow His child to live a stale Christian life of just “going through the motions.” His unchanging character will move Him to correct us. And here is the “scary part” of God’s correction should we allow sin in our lives. We do not know the length He will go to get our “attention” and drive us to sorrow and repentance. He may give us “severe mercy” and the pain in doing so very deep in order to show us the folly of sin. Now the “good side” of our unchanging God.

God is unchanging in His love toward us. Settle in and soak in today’s scripture – “His steadfast love endures forever.” God cannot, nor will not, ever change in His love to us. He has loved us, does love us, and will love us for all eternity. Such love is not based on the worthiness of its object; not based on the performance of its object, and will not alter in the One who gives such love. Basically, we may summarize that last sentence like this; God does not love us based on our goodness, we have none; nor does He love us because we “perform” the Christian life, we don’t; and He will not change His love to us because He cannot change.

So, as we live the Christian life, let the unchanging nature of our God be both a warning and a comfort. It will prove to be a great encouragement to press on in the good fight of faith.

PRAYER: “Father, I so praise You for being my unchanging God who loves me not because of me, but despite me.”

QUOTE: “The unchanging nature of God is both a warning and a comfort. What we sow we will reap because He is such.”