Gospel.com Blog

Do you ever feel like you can’t keep pace with the change going on around you? Consider your life just ten years ago—before 9/11, before the iPod, before Lost and 24. What has changed in your life in that time? What has remained the same? Has anything remained the same?

In the last decade, I’ve gotten married, had a kid, bought a house, and seen almost every part of my life change in some way. I see the effects of change everyday at work in the publishing industry, which is struggling to cope with rapidly-evolving technology. What, in all of this change, can we truly rely on?

That’s the question being asked at this Daily Encounter devotional, which offers an encouraging reminder that there is one thing that won’t change with the times:

Change, rapid change—some for good and some for bad—has become the order of the day. They say that today’s average worker will need to be retrained at least three times during his working career to keep up with all the changes. Changes in technology, our manner of living, relationships, beliefs, philosophy, morals, and so on are happening so fast it is difficult to keep up with it all. It can leave us reeling and stressed to the max.

And while we have learned how to put a man on the moon and talk to him while he is there, we hardly know how to communicate to one another in a meaningful manner when we are in the same room! Much of our modern education (with access to almost unlimited knowledge) has taught us how to make a living but has failed miserably in teaching us how to live.

And without an anchor for the soul we can be left floating on a restless changing sea of uncertainty and insecurity. But for those who have faith in God, of this one thing we can be absolutely sure: God changes not! His love is from everlasting to everlasting and he is still in control of the world and universe no matter what.

What in your life is truly changeless? Do you lean on God, the only perfectly reliable constant in a world of continual, bewildering change?

Have you hit a wall in your personal or spiritual life? This devotional from Daily Encounter reminds us that we need to be open to the possibility that change in our own lives is sometimes necessary to move forward.

The devotional cites Rick Warren asserting that most churches fail to grow beyond a few hundred members because they fail to make the necessary organizational changes to make it possible, not because the Gospel message has lost its appeal. In the same way, sometimes we sabotage our own spiritual development or evangelism efforts because we don’t recognize when it’s time to make changes:

No, we don’t want to make changes where change is not to our advantage, but there are times when we do need to make changes. When it comes to communicating the gospel, while the message itself never changes, our way and means of communicating it have to change in order to communicate effectively to the particular group we are addressing. One size doesn’t fit all!

Also, whether we approve or disapprove, many things around us change and if we don’t adapt, we get left behind….

A few years back, Moody Monthly, the highly respected Christian magazine, discontinued its publication after its 103-year history. Why? Because of the economy, the proliferation of Christian magazines, and because of technology. Moody Monthly, like so many other ministries, has had to turn from printed hard copy to electronic means of communication, not only to become more effective in their ministry, but also to survive.

Read the full devotional at Daily Encounter.

Are you evangelism efforts falling on deaf ears? Is your devotional life stalling out, or your personal life running up against an insurmountable obstacle? A little change in how you think and act might make a big difference!