And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent. (1 Samuel 15:29). . . . For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)Israel had forsaken God, but he promised that He would not forsake them. He assured them that He did not lie, nor would He change His mind about His intentions for them. Paul repeats this in the New Testament. When God says He will do something, He does it. He keeps His Word.
Knowing that God is like this is a comfort for me and an anchor for my soul. God is the one thing that never changes. He is reliable when all else is unpredictable. Because of that, I trust Him with my life.
Besides giving me a solid hope and another reason for my faith, there is at least one other way to apply these verses. It is related to God’s goal for me. He calls me to be transformed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person”(Hebrews 1:3), then this transformation mean that God wants me to be like Him. That includes being someone who does not lie, who keeps her word and does what I say I will do.
Being like God is an incredible goal. This is different from the new-age idea that we are gods. Rather it is about being transformed into what God intended when He created people in His image. That first sin by the first people marred the image and that propensity to sin has been passed down to every member of the human race.
God, in mercy, has provided a way to reverse this. Redemption through faith in Jesus Christ and the power of God to recreate means that anyone can have their sin forgiven and their life restored, once again reflecting the image of their Creator. But I know I cannot do this myself, although Scripture is full of commands to imitate God.
Along with those commands, God gives the invitation to come to Him for restoration. Because I have done that, He gives assurance of new life, and hope because He lives in me. Because of Him I can do as He asks. Galatians 2:20 says,
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.Rules, commands, high values, good morals, strong convictions and so on are all good things, but being like God is not about my efforts to be good. Verse 21 adds, “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” (Galatians 2:21)
The Bible is clear that I am saved by grace through faith, not by good works such as keeping rules and laws, or by self-effort. However, grace is not abandoned after that new life begins. I also continue to live my Christian life by grace through faith. Galatians 3:3 asks, “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” and 3:11 adds, “That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’”
Sometimes I’m tempted to slide into trying to do it myself. Foolishly abandoning faith, I get hung up with efforts to be “good” and keep the rules. One of my favorite passages reminds me that this is folly and there is only one way to be like God. It says, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6)
The higher moral traditions of men teach integrity and reliability, but they forget the part about sin and about human nature that so easily reverts to self-effort. I know that apart from Christ and His cleansing power, it is impossible to please God. If I want to be a person of my word, have integrity and be 100% reliable, then I must be a person who is like God.
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