“Who moved my cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, published in 1998, is a book intended to help businesses recognize and cope with change — mainly the fact that changes are inevitable and cannot always be safely ignored.  While those changes are not always positive, it is important they be proactively dealt through anticipation and direct preparation or with a planned strategy of recovery and adjustment.  The book also sorts people into four groups according to how they handle change:  1) those who “sniff” out change as it approaches and so plan ahead to make the best of it;  2) those who “scurry” on to new solutions when change disqualifies the old solutions;  3) those who “hem” themselves into failure by refusing to acknowledge new difficulties caused by a change or that a change has even occurred; and  4) those who “haw” by complaining about the change or repeatedly applying the same non-working solution, but eventually progress from delaying to actually coping with the change.  The sniffers and the scurriers seem to instinctively handle change without thinking too much while the hemmers and the hawwers seem to instinctively resist change without thinking too much.
     Anyway, reading the book got me thinking about the topic of “change” in general and more specifically about how the message of salvation we present could easily be described as a message of change.
     
     Jesus says His mission is to rescue the perishing — to change people’s condition.  “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:14-17
     Concerning people who listen to the words of Jesus and believe in Him, Jesus describes them as having passed from death into life — they are changed.  “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24)
     
     Repentance, by its very definition, requires a change of direction — to reverse course from moving away from God to moving toward God (1Kings 8:47-48; Jeremiah 25:5; Ezekiel 14:6, 18:30; Acts 3:19, 26:20).  Through baptism we change from being outside Christ to being inside Christ (Romans 6:1-11).  Several times Paul addresses the idea that since we are now new creatures in Christ we should no longer live as we did outside of Christ — a change between the new man and old man.
     2 Peter 1:3-11 is just one of many passages teaching Christians to be steadily growing.  Growth involves change, albeit in a positive direction.  Therefore, in a certain sense, Christians are to be steadily changing.
     Still, several passages caution us to remain faithful, to be steadfast, in order to keep hold of our restored relationship with God.  Practicing false teaching and falling away from Christ are changes in a negative direction that we want to avoid.
     
     Another way the gospel is a message of change is that it teaches believers to be unafraid of death such as in the example of the rich man and Lazarus.  It also teaches us to confront death before it confronts us such as Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:12-15.
     The entire letter to Hebrews addresses how Jesus changed God’s religion by fulfilling the Old Law through His death and then establishing a new better covenant.  Acts 2:42 is a brief passage that powerfully summarizes these changes in the religion of God’s people.
     The day of judgement, Jesus predicts in Matthew chapters 7 and 25, will be a day of unwelcome change for the many people who incorrectly believed that their man-made religious practices should satisfy God’s desires.  Their sense of security and confidence will be shattered while those who listened and believed in Jesus will have their hopes fulfilled.
     
     We could go on, but you get the idea.  For those of us who have accepted God’s salvation on His terms, something wonderful has happened.  Jesus has changed us, is changing us, and will continue to change us in ways that will endure.  And He instructs us to share the good news of this change with others.