East Baptist Church – Denison, TX

How To Handle Change

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NASB) ¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

I would also like to make sure that we understand changing just to keep up or just for the sake of change is also not good. We live in a time and place where we often throw the baby out with the bath water in seeking change for the sake of change. We live in a time and place that calls for radical change rather than taking the time to figure out if we even needed change. Change for the sake of change is very seldom the answer.

I have learned that the key to how I handle change is to ask, Will it matter in eternity?

Ministry to The New Testament church calls for change, because of the fact that life for our fellow family members changes.

Regardless of which camp you follow or even if you mix and match camps, I would suggest we often find we react to change in what I call the three R’s.

I think that God often moves us to adapt our ways of reacting as we grow in the power of His Holy Spirit. I also think that the circumstances around us influence our reaction to change. Growth on all levels is change, but more so on the spiritual level.

The first R is Resist It: There are about three different ways that I would suggest most of us normally deal with change, first of all we often fight it.  That is often my first reaction to change.

It is so easy to ring in on the second R. Resent It: We gripe about it. In that resentful mode, we grumble, we go ahead and go with it, but we don’t like it.

The third R is we run from change; we just remove ourselves from the change. We run to a new job; we run from an old marriage to a new one.  The list is as long as the paths to run on to leave change behind. 

We often hit a fourth R that is related to running away by retreating back into an old way of dealing even if it is not the answer. So, we focus on how the past was.

So, if we are going to learn how to live life and handle change more productively, we need to focus our souls on what will never change. Those things we know will change we must be flexible with, but that which does not change we must not be flexible with. Some things are changeable, some are not, we need the wisdom to know the difference.

Jesus was all about people. He never missed out on the opportunity to develop intimate fellowship with people He talked to. You see, everything that Jesus was, He is today. Everything that He is now, He will be in the future, and every characteristic of His life is to be counted upon, a possession that we can experience, just like those in Scripture had.

Jesus, in essence, is to be the foundation of our lives. Therefore, we can look at everything from that perspective through His eyes. We need to ask ourselves, ‘How will my involvement in this activity today affect eternity?” I mean, ”Do I need to really concern myself with being involved in this change today in light of its impact upon tomorrow?”  My BELOVED Sometimes change causes more pain and trouble than good and sometimes moves us away from God’s will not towards it. Be led by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The stability of our life is not to be based upon who is in office and who is not in office. Who is on TV and who is on radio and what they say in the newspaper. It is to be based upon God’s Word and not current facts and trends. Because those current facts and trends tomorrow will be uncurrent facts and trends. Our stability is to be based upon the doctrines and eternal truths of God’s Word.

Life is all about growing in Christ through the changes of life and that is reflected in our attitude. It is sensitively flexible to what He is doing, while remaining grounded in His purpose that never changes. He is trying to form you into the image of Christ.