8 Things To Be Thankful For - God Never Changes
He does not change. He has always been merciful and just and He always will be. People change - God does not.
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8 Things To Be Thankful For - God Never Changes
One of the things I seem to hear over and over again goes something like this: the Old Testament and the New Testament contradict each other. In the Old Testament, God hates mankind but in the New Testament, He somehow changes into a God of peace and love. Which one is He?
Let me say this before I go any further. It is a travesty to oversimplify the incredibly complex personhood of God like that. God isn’t some psychotic cosmic deity that changes His personality from one day to the next. In fact, God can’t do that. If He could, you and I would not even be here today.
Wait … what? How does that work?
Allow me to introduce you to the books of Isaiah and Malachi. The Bible contains 66 different books; 39 in the OT and 27 in the NT. Isaiah, one of the most significant OT books, is 66 chapters long and is essentially divided into two sections. The first 39 chapters focus on God’s passion for truth and justice by depicting His wrath and judgement. The last 27 chapters unveil His unfailing love and mercy by proclaiming His forgiveness and redemption.
Isiah is an amazing microcosm of the whole Bible, perfectly outlining God’s plan about 700 years before Jesus came to earth and died on the cross. It portrays the complex nature of a just, yet merciful, God to illustrate to us that He does not change. He has always been merciful and just and He always will be. People change - God does not.
But it’s Malachi who tells us why that matters and why that truth should bring us all to our knees in thankfulness to God. Here’s what he wrote in the last book of the OT:
Malachi 3:6
“For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Those words appear just 19 verses before the 1st word of the NT. Let me explain what He is saying. If God were to ever change His mind, you and I would no longer exist. We would be “consumed” by now. However, God promised to give His love and mercy in place of His wrath and judgment in an all-out effort to save His rebellious creation from itself.
That, my friend, is worthy of a loud and enthusiastic “Thank you!” from every one of us, don’t you think?
