thank God for change

This past Sunday I began a new series at The Community called CHANGE.  It is my desire to ask God to change my mind and others where we miss His best, His brightest and His sweetest blessings.  Does that make sense?

God wants us to have more and to serve more and to let His love be ever more real to us and to the people around us.  I am excited to go to the next level, but there are some things that we need to know and to claim about what God does in our lives.  What He has done in us, He will do in others.  That is awesome stuff!

'Be the change that you wish to see in the world.' —  Mahatma Gandhi

Be the change.  That saying is on the wall in our basement.  I’ve seen it on bumper stickers.  I was in a law office recently, and the lawyer we met had this as a tattoo on the back of her neck. 

Change is something we need.  Politicians shout about it.  Preachers are preaching about it.  The news and our neighbors are asking for it.  But what is the change they are asking for?  I assert that few people really know the change they are asking for.  Here is another view:

Colossians 1:6  NLT

This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

The best change is the change God gives.  Too many people are looking to win the lottery or to land the job with the big salary, but God is looking for the people willing to give it all for Him and to Him.  That is a change.  It is a big change.

Luke 9:23  NASB

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Gandhi said, “be the change”, yet I believe God is asking us to let Him be the change.  In the passage we look at today there are topics that stick out when change has occurred.  When we are changed, things look different, faith is present and confidence happens. 

God is working in you and in me to make us more like Jesus.  His desire is not to make us puppets.  The more I seek God, the more He changes my life.  Then the result is lives being changed all around us.  And I love to see God change lives.

Philippians 2:13  NASB

For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.

In the next few weeks we are going to see God do things in big ways.  Next week the mission team I talked about yesterday will be here, and our new campus will begin to be transformed.  In the coming weeks we will dig deeper in to understanding the changes God is making in our lives.  Further, I believe that we are to see the lives of even more people changed as only God can do.  This is going to be awesome!

Thank God for change.  There is more to come.