October 22, 2004
In an election year, buzzwords and catchy slogans fly about faster and more furiously than clouds of swarming mosquitoes (and believe me, I know what clouds of swarming mosquitoes are like).
One of the ideas that has been tossed about is that of “positive change”, either that we are in the midst of it or in need of it. So we eagerly and passionately wait for the upcoming election in order that what good things we’ve reaped might continue or that new things may soon come our way.
But I cannot help but look on all this furor and frenzy with a great deal of sadness for those who put their eggs in the basket of presidential politics. While the process of democratically electing our leaders is tremendously important and while I too feel strongly about the issues at stake and the candidates on the ticket, the fact of the matter is that the persons appointed to the various posts of leadership in our government (including the top one) cannot meet the deepest needs of our lives.
What makes me sad is that we collectively spend the energies of our passions on all sorts of causes and pastimes yet neglect the one thing that matters most: our own spiritual condition. Folks hope that those elected to office will somehow fix all their woes and make everything all right, but they still end up empty, frustrated and defeated.
Is it time for a change in America? Perhaps, but whatever changes take place on any political level are going to be incidental to you compared to your spiritual needs. For too many of us such changes are just deferments for the changes that should be taking place in our own individual lives. They’re smokescreens to cover gaping lacks of responsibility we each have for our own eternal destinies.
Is it time for a change in your life? Consider well the question, “How has (or is) God changing my life?” If there is no answer or if the answer is unclear to you, let your heart open wide to the change that God’s love can bring to you.
Such change fundamentally begins with the moment we surrender our sin and our self-will to God and come to Him in faith.
John chapter 3 records a religious leader named Nicodemus having approached Jesus to discuss the lofty matter of the Lord’s teachings. Nicodemus probably thought himself merely interested in conversing about some of the things that Jesus had been teaching.
Jesus’ response however was to get to the heart of the need of this theologically learned leader: “You must be born again,” He tells him in verse seven. Quite visible to Jesus was Nicodemus’ intrigue with the power and authority of Jesus’ life. Quite evident to the Lord was the man’s hunger for the same meat of meaning and victory in his own experience that he discerned in Jesus.
Have you had a “new birth?” Whatever Nicodemus thought he knew about the kingdom and the things of God, he hadn’t caught on to this basic and yet essential truth. Whatever good things Nicodemus had accomplished in the name of God for the sake of religion or even for the benefit of other people, he had nothing if he did not have this one thing.
Jesus looks on this tortured teacher and tenderly tells him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." What a tragedy then if you or I were to choose to continue to live our lives based on religious exercise instead of being “birthed” into relationship with Him! What loss and powerlessness is our doom if we never come to personally know the power and hope of the kingdom of God!
Let it not be so for you and for me! “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not condemned; He who does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:14-18). As Jesus proclaims what is ultimately our only hope for life and meaning let us look upon this One Who was “lifted up, believing in Him that we may receive the gift of eternal life!”
As we are then “born again”, let us know that we have been gloriously made new! “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Through the grace of God, we may put behind us the wretched and selfish persons we once were (no matter how cleverly we hid our wretchedness behind airs of self-confidence and good works) and become fully the new creations that God is making of us, enjoying the journey of relationship with Him through Christ.
"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will glorify Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people. The people whom I formed for Myself will declare My praise” (Isaiah 43:18-21).
(Thom Mollohan has ministered in southern Ohio the past nine years and is the pastor of Pathway Community Church. He and his wife are the parents of three children with another on the way! He may be reached by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
