The Challenge of Change – by Marilyn Ehle

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever…” Hebrews 13:8

An announcement seen in religious magazine:

Wanted: pastor for small church; mostly older people
but willing to reach out to younger people; no desire for change
in worship or preaching style.

Do you catch the incongruity in that advertisement? The basic premise is “we want to follow Jesus but we want to do it our way.” We have a startling example of that in the followers of Jesus. When He began to reveal to His disciples that soon He would go through an unimaginable ordeal of suffering and death, Peter—who only moments before had given a strong statement of faith—freely offered his opinion. Peter took Him by the hand and led Him aside and then facing Him began to rebuke Him (Mark 8:32 Amplified Bible). In essence Peter said,

“Jesus, I’m sure you have the program all wrong. I know you’re the Messiah and have a great plan for saving the world, but what you’ve just described is too radical.”

Another time after Jesus preached a sermon in one of his favorite synagogues about the reality of discipleship, the Bible records, When His disciples heard this, many of them said, “This is a hard and difficult and strange saying… Who can be expected to listen to such teaching?”… After this, many of His disciples returned to their old associations and no longer accompanied Him.

Following hard after Jesus is committing to a life where change is the norm and not the exception. And in that change we find joy in the presence of Jesus.

by Marilyn Ehle
Used by Permission