Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord,
Time is running so fast. No long ago I wrote to you a letter and the time has come for the next one. I love writing to you as now this is the only way of being in touch with you, unfortunately only one way, but if the Lord helps me to comfort you at least a little, it brings a lot of joy.
I still remember the words of the last Sabbath sermon preached by pastor Josh Stadnik. It was a good sermon. He preached about the fact that nothing will be the same as it used to be — not only the times we’re living in are changed, not only the methods of our mission has to be changed, not only the format of our worships, but most of all we have to change, as people. All the restrictions and scares of being sick made us different. But anyhow there are some constant points, unchangeable, sure and untouchable.
I would like to persuade you about this in a short way. Though everything around us is changing and swirling we have our Lord and Saviour who never changes. We know so well the verse from Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV): “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” It is not about how our Lord looks like, instead, about His invariable love for us. It is the best remedy for everything and nothing can seperate us from this love. Apostle Paul expressed this in such a beautiful way (Romans 8:35,39): “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … [nothing] shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So as our God is not changing and His character does not change, which means His love, consequently His way of salvation is not changed — it is free, by grace through faith. It was always so — He and only He is the source of salvation and we may experience it everyday and should be sure of it. We should talk about it at homes and share with others who maybe haven’t heard about it.
After all, His promises were not changed either. You know them also, as for the last few months we came back to them in our letters, sermons and your personal Bible studies. Among them there is a promise of His soon return. What a fantastic perspective! “Surely I am coming quickly” — says the Lord Jesus to us. Shall we respond in the same way as John did with the words “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”?
Despite of these immutabilities from the side of God, we, unfortunately change quite often not for good and our changes can cause many problems. We can change His picture in our life, though He never changes, we may change our abilities to admire His love, though His love is unchangeable. We may change our understanding the principles of salvation, not depending on Him in everything, but depending on our own deeds and efforts and finally we can change our understanding of His promises. But to avoid such changes in our life it will be good if our prayer and desire will be:
“Dear God, make me not so vulnerable for changes, that all my uncertainty will be changed into stability of looking unto Jesus, stability of loving, trusting and patiently waiting for You to come. This is what I desire and know – without You I am not able to do anything.”
May our good Lord bless us in such stability of faith.
Pastor Roman Chalupka
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