Continued Thought from Sunday

This past week we talked about how God is unchanging. The God who spoke to Moses and David and Jonah is the very same God who wants to speak into our lives as well. Even though we are constantly changing (our hair style, growing, graying, growing older, etc) God is the same. We can always count on Him to be the same.

I wanted to take that thought just a little further.

God's word (one of the ways God speaks directly to us) doesn't change, but how we read it does. What it means to us as our lives change, is different. Let me give you a very personal example.

The very first Sunday of connections I shared with you how I came to a PERSONAL relationship with Jesus. I knew since I was tiny that there was a God and He was real. I also knew who Jesus was and that He died for my sins. I believed that. I accepted that as truth. However....it was just head knowledge. I knew it just like I knew Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in 1492.

In jr. high I came across this verse from Joshua 24:15. This is what it says, "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." At the time I felt like God was speaking directly to me. He was saying, "Aaron I want you to be serving me with your heart, not just your head. I want to be the most important thing in your life. I want to take priority here."

That was half a lifetime ago. Now I'm 33 and have wife and two beautiful little boys. That very same verse means something very very different to me right now in my life. I read that now, and I hear God saying, "Aaron I want you to lead your family. I want you to teach your boys that there is only one God. I want you to help your family understand that I need to be focal point of all of your lives. Aaron I want you to be the spiritual head of your house."

Did God change? No. Did the words change? No. Have I changed in the last 20 years? Yes. How these words apply to my life are a bit different as a 33 year old than they did as a 12 or 13 year old (or however old I was).

God is unchanging. We are the ones changing. We find strength knowing that we can run back to God time and time again and He hasn't gone anywhere. He's there waiting with open arms ready for us to fall into.