“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
Have you ever gotten ready for school in the morning and decided you did not like your outfit? Maybe you did not like that color of socks. Maybe that shirt is uncomfortable. Maybe your shoes were too tight or too dirty to wear. Unless you are short on time, it is usually OK to change your clothes. People do it all the time.
Have you ever realized that a food you used to hate is starting to become a favorite food now? Maybe you used to hate spinach. After all, it is slimy and green. Your parents made you try it when you were little, and you wanted to spit it out! But let’s say that you just tried spinach again recently. (You had to, because it was in Grandma’s manicotti dish, and you love Grandma’s manicotti! So you tried it again – you put it on your fork, turned it around so you could get a good look at it, tasted it thoughtfully, and swallowed it right down! And you could not believe your tastebuds! After all those years of hating spinach, you are starting to love it. People are like that. As we grow older, our tastes change.
Did you ever lose track of someone who used to be a good friend of yours? Maybe you moved to another town, or maybe you just got busy with things going on at church or with your schoolwork. Maybe something happened in your family, and you just have not been seeing the same friends every day anymore. Or maybe your friends and you have just become interested in such different things that you do not need to spend much time together. That happens to people. Some friends will always be a part of our lives. But some of our friends will change over the years. We make new friends. We may never forget the old friends, but we might spend less time with them.
Change is a part of every human being’s life. Things change around us. We have to deal with that change. Other people change around us. And we ourselves change, both inside and out. We change our minds about little things like favorite clothes or what to drink at breakfast-time. We change our minds about big things, too, like whether we will obey our parents and what we want to be when we grow up. Sometimes it takes a very long time for us to change – it takes a long time to grow taller or wiser! On other things, we might change overnight – it does not take too long to decide whether or not to obey, does it?
Every human being has to change. But one encouraging thing about Jesus Christ is that He is always the same. He is God, so He will always have the great character that only God has. He will always be perfectly good and perfectly great in every single way. Jesus Christ does not have to decide every day whether or not He will love His people. He does not have to think about whether He will keep on being gracious and merciful and sinless. He does not have to wonder about whether He ought to be all-powerful.
Because Jesus never changes, we do not have to wonder about Him, either. We can trust that Jesus will always be exactly Who He always has been. He will never lose love for His people. He will never forget us or let us down or change His mind about us. He will never make mistakes. He will never do wrong. Because He is faithful and never-changing, Jesus deserves our trust and worship. What a great God He is!
The Lord Jesus Christ is always going to be exactly Who He always has been.
My Response:
» Do I ever doubt whether Jesus is still the same Person He was in Bible times?
» Do I ever wonder how Jesus could keep on showing grace to me every day?
» How should I respond as I learn more about the unchanging goodness and greatness of Jesus Christ?