Our immutable God

“Why do they have to keep changing things?”  Thus my sister, when her new printer refused to talk to her old laptop!  The latter is functioning perfectly, doing just what she requires of it; why, indeed should something be abandoned just because it is old?

“I wish they wouldn’t keep changing things!”  A friend in the village this time, lamenting the fact that her car has finally had to be replaced and the latest version of her previous model is now bigger and so of no use to her.  Now she has a new car which gives her little pleasure to drive…

Of course, one reason why ‘they’ keep changing things is because 'they' want us to keep buying things, appealing to our materialistic natures which are often only too pleased to oblige them!

And, in many a workplace, new brooms are always sweeping clean.  When I was teaching, the constant changes introduced by Government or by Senior Management seemed to be designed to keep us in a state of anxiety or confusion, either, we thought, to maintain their power over us or perhaps to justify their existence.  (The underlying scourge of contemporaneity can wait for another time!)

In a world of uncertainties and changes how good, then, to know our immutable God, the One who reminds us in His word:

I am the Lord, I do not change. (Malachi 3:6a)

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. (James 1:17)

Good is not a man, that He should lie, nor a Son of man, that He should repent.  Has He said, and will He not do it?  Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19)

He cannot change for the better, for He is already perfect; and being perfect, He cannot change for the worse.  (A W Pink)

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide!

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see:

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

                                      H F Lyte