If It No Longer Works, Change To Something That Does…
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(18) <The Lord said to the Israelites through Isaiah,> “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. (19) See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”’ (Isaiah 43:18-19); ‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’ (Romans 12:2)
All of us are afraid of change to some degree, but at some point, we have to confront that which used to work but is no longer working for us. I used to wear nothing but blue jeans from a well-known American manufacturer. They held up and I could get years of reliable wear out of them. Unfortunately, their manufacturing started to go ‘off-shore’ to a third-world country, and soon I noticed the pants were of a lower quality, and that they were not holding up to the daily wear.
I started to get only months out of them, even though the price kept creeping up. The poor quality combined with the rising price of the jeans had me revisit my ‘brand’ loyalty, and to the denim material itself. At that point, I looked at other styles of work pants and brands, and settled on cargo pants. Most are made of the same material, most khaki but some that are black, grey or camouflage, made by a different brand than the jeans. I have found these last for years, hold up to the ‘wear-and-tear’ I put them through (though admittedly not as harsh as I did in my younger days), and the extra pockets have more utility than the jeans had.
Others may have similar experiences with other brands. My father was a certain car-brand guy, with all his cars and trucks being that particular brand until he passed. I have had no such loyalty to a car brand like him, but I know others who have had such loyalty to a point until either quality, price, or service started waning. We also do actions based on ‘this is how we’ve always done it’; I continue to write checks to pay bills, but with a couple of bills I’ve started to do the ‘e-Pay’ through online banking, as mail service is becoming less secure and more unpredictable.
Some changes are going to be forced upon us; the IRS recently stopping sending refund checks and are doing only electronic bank deposits. Automobiles are coming standard with accident-avoidance systems (that are greatly annoying to me when I rent cars with them) and as of 2026, by law, are equipped with ‘driver-surveillance’ to see if the driver is alert and not intoxicated or incapacitated before the car will start (and can be allegedly turned off by law-enforcement and government agencies remotely, a dangerous precedent). Some car manufacturers are preventing owners from servicing or making changes to their own cars through software detection. (Try to make a change, and your car becomes a ‘brick’ and immovable.)
While these changes may not all be good for us, there are changes, like the jeans to cargo pants for me, that have been beneficial and welcome. As we are ready to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday, the change from rule under the British crown to a self-governance ‘by the people and for the people‘ was a profound and highly beneficial change for all Americans, both past and present. Today, shifts in politics have swayed back and forth to get us to where we are at as a nation today – not all changes good, but not all are bad, either.
However, the biggest change we have in our lives is documented in Isaiah 43:18-19; the Israelites were living under the Levitical or Mosaic Law, the instructions given to Moses by God while the twelve tribes were wandering in the desert while on their way to the Promised Land of Canaan. For centuries afterward, the Israelites found mixed results of their obedience to strictly follow the Law. It was not that the Law had any flaws, but it was hard for anyone to follow it to a ‘t’.
If one could follow the Law perfectly, they would be completely sanctified and heaven-bound, but no one can do that; it was impossible to anyone to achieve Salvation through the Law as somewhere, sometime, a person would stumble. It could be the sacrifice they gave had a small blemish, or it was something said as gossip just one time, a minor slip that caused failure. The Law also was given for the Israelites, God’s chosen people to be His example, not to the Gentiles that quickly outgrew and outnumbered the Jews. What could be done to provide Salvation for them, even those who believed in God?
Isaiah provides good news; God through Isaiah’s prophecies, gives the Jews and Gentiles a ‘new way’, though we now know He has been there since the beginning of time. God gives Isaiah the prophecy of the coming Messiah, who would be the Savior of all people. He would be the Perfect Sacrifice, the one who follows the Law perfectly, without blemish, blame, or sin. That Messiah, of course, is Jesus, who came centuries after Isaiah’s writings about Him. Through Jesus, the Law is fulfilled and we now have the means to petition Jesus to intercede for us, forgive our sins, and be made perfect though His Sacrifice and His victory over Death and Sin.
We are not to dwell over what has failed us in the past but focus on what, and Who, gives us success today. Accepting Jesus as our Savior provides us this change from the old ways that failed, our sinful life without Him, to the new way of life with Him, forgiven and accepted by God. Paul in Romans 12:2 tells us to stop living in the sin of the world that has failed us and eventually would destroy us, but change and reshape our mind and soul over to what God, through Jesus is offering us in place of the world, everlasting life with Him.
Like my experience with blue jeans, they no longer worked for me, they failed me. I sought something new that worked for me, cargo pants. Far greater, I found the way of the world no longer worked for me, it failed me. I sought something new that worked for me, Jesus. I know He will last a lifetime as my Savior and my Way, a lifetime of eternity with Him. Try Him on, as He is a guaranteed perfect fit!
