An Unchanging Life-Changing Message – February 4, 2022

As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:14,15

An Unchanging Life-Changing Message

As parents, we were encouraged to read to our children from a young age. It would help to spark their imagination and grow their reading and language skills. I spent hours reading to my oldest children when they were younger.

Eventually, our older children did more of the reading with their younger siblings until they could read on their own. But there is one thing I still read and teach to my children almost every single day. And that’s the message of the Bible. It’s the same message my parents taught me when I was young. It’s the same message I pray my children will teach their children.

That message doesn’t change. The Bible uncovers the truth about a God whose standards of right and wrong don’t change, whose promise to punish disobedience doesn’t change. But the Bible also uncovers the truth of a God whose Son was born as a human being to be punished in our place, who frees us from guilt for his sake and makes us worthy of life in heaven.

That unchanging message changes our lives. It leads us to see and know God as a God of mercy, forgiveness, and unconditional love. It leads us to trust God as the source of true hope and peace for this life and the life to come after we die. As we trust the Bible’s message, we receive its benefits—rescue from guilt and punishment, a place in God’s family, and an eternal home with him.

Every time we hear that unchanging, life-changing message, God is carrying out his eternal agenda for us. He is strengthening our faith to believe what he has done for us so that we continue in that faith as long as we live. And every time we share it—with our children or with others—God is carrying out the same saving agenda in their lives.

Prayer:
God, thank you for changing my life with your unchanging message. Help me to continue in what I have heard and believed. Amen.