As we contemplate the God-centered values we espouse for Africa’s leadership as AFReG, we realize that change in all of us is imperative if these are to become a reality. In this series of devotions, we consider several topics under the general theme – “Changing Against the Tide” based on Romans 12:1-2. With transformation, everything changes. Through the transformative power of the Gospel, grace through faith and the Holy Spirit’s enablement, this change becomes a reality. Journey with us now as we acknowledge the reality of change and how this change can be used by the Lord in building us and His kingdom together!

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19

For so many of us, change is the destination at which we most lament arriving. Yet, it is also the destination we most often experience. As Romans 12 reminds us, change is an aspect and process that accompanies life and its associated transformation. For the children of Israel, God routinely brought change into their lives and routines so they might continually be challenged to seek God, His understanding and His way forward through the change. Jesus regularly challenged His disciples with new divine perspectives that stretched their existing, and often natural, understandings so they might better discern that which was spiritual and eternal. In Matthew 16, Jesus intentionally changed His disciples’ physical location to Caesarea Philippi…literally a journey through wilderness and wastelands for a “new thing” that God was preparing to do through His Son. These changes were introduced so that He might provide a new and divinely revealed change in how they understood both Him, and the revelation of Him as the Messiah.

The Spirit, working through Isaiah, reminds us that the Lord is in the process of divinely superintending the change we experience, as either its author or the One who allows it to touch and affect our lives. As we experience the inevitable changes that shape our daily lives in the often chaotic world in which we live, we can turn in faith to our Lord who walks with us through this change. He does so by…

1. His Spirit who makes our way clear. (Isaiah 43:19)
2. The Word of God which illuminates our way in change. (Psalms 119:105)
3. God using the changes in our lives for His divine revelations and eternal purposes. (Matthew 16:13-18; 2 Corinthiens 4:16)

To perceive God’s purposes amidst the inevitable changes we will experience will require newer levels of faith and trust. These truths help direct us to the Lord who does not change (Hebrews 13:8) and who is working those changes that we experience for both our good (Romans 8:28) and for His eternal glory (2 Corinthians 4:16).

PRAYER:

• Lord Jesus, as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), we yield our reluctance to offer our routines and expectations to make room in our lives for the divine opportunities that you desire us to embrace and experience. Remove from us our obstinate hearts and sinful preoccupation with self, that we might perceive the newness You have for us in Christ Jesus.
• We invite You to take the lead as You navigate us through the changes we know are part of our journey, with and to You, so we might perceive beyond our natural senses, and receive from Your fullness of grace (John 1:16).
• Amidst the inevitable change that comes our way, may we seek the Lord in humility and dependence, trusting in the unchanging One to strengthen us as we are transformed through these changes more and more into His image and likeness.