Malachi 3:6 NLT "I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed."
He will never change, but if I want to get closer to Him then I have to! I was talking to a pastor friend yesterday and we got to discussing how over time our beliefs and perspectives have changed. He repeated something that he was told many years ago by a older, wiser man "if you write your doctrine in stone then you will become a heretic!" Man, what a statement, but if you think about it, it's true.
Simply put, being a heretic means that you no longer agree with your own doctrine. So when I write it in stone, I have no room for flexibility. Now, let me be clear, I'm not saying that foundational absolutes are flexible - like Jesus being the only way to Father God or His death, burial and resurrection, but there are some things I need to be elastic in, so that I can grow in truth with greater revelation. The Word says in 2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
So, if this scripture is right, and I believe it is, then we should always be changing or transforming into the image of God. When we say yes to Jesus, our spiritual man is changed into His image immediately, but our outer image is a work in process. Or it should be at least. Look at it like this, if you are on a ladder, and we'll call that our faith in Jesus. As we climb the ladder our perspective changes. We get higher and can see more with a clearer image of the big picture. But it changes with ever step up.
I remember, not long ago, like 2.5 years that I despised the Apostolic/Prophetic stream of the body of Christ. I'll use Bethel Church in Redding, CA as an example. I had heard of them and some of what they did and always saw them as weird and it seemed like a free-for-all to me. So without spending any time listening to them, researching their leaders or putting myself in that environment, I judged them (not cutting myself any slack) as extremist who couldn't really line ip with the Word because nothing was decent and in order.
Side-Note, I used to be very controlling and when you're controlling, nothing or no one seems as right as your are! It's a skewed perspective of reality.
Anyway, I viewed them through the lens of my history, and because I had to be right, then they were obviously wrong. But God, I love that statement, lead me to a place (to make a long story short) where I realized my identity was fractured and therefore my view of humanity was affected by it, including different streams of the same body I claimed to be a part of. In October of 2012 my world was rocked when I saw a 10 minute YouTube video featuring Bill Johnson and I've never been the same since.
I had to release control of my own life, question my own beliefs and open myself up to receive a level of Glory that God was trying to dispense upon me. He was trying to add to me and bring me to a place where more of His fullness could be seen in my life and in turn, the church that I was leading, or rather controlling. Over the years I had become better at relinquishing control, but not to the level that the Lord needed me to be, so that He could position us for an outpouring of Holy Spirit that would change the face of our church family as we knew it.
As a result, we have seen cancer die, tumors shrink, old neck injuries corrected, skin disease destroyed, numerous financial victories and so many more miracles that are too numerous to list. You can visitwww.ilovetheway.tv to see more. On the other hand, we've seen people go home to be with the Lord who dealt with the same diseases we've seen bow to the name Jesus. I can't explain it, but like Job, I have come to the conclusion that God is Good all the time and that we as a church are on a journey of the supernatural.
The point is that, if I'm not willing to change then I'll never see all the Goodness that God has to offer, only that portion that I will allow in because I can explain and control it. However, when I do that I have brought Jesus (which was the only normal Christian) to my level of experience instead of pursuing His example where He never left anyone without healing. I have to be willing to step into the move of God without trying to control how He moves.
Just a thought to leave you with, when someone calls you weird because of your radical desire to be like Jesus realize that your part of a great company of people who have abandoned all to see the world changed by the Love of a Good Father.
By the way, weird in the dictionary means "suggesting the operation of supernatural influences" so, I'll be weird all day long!
Blessings