Just because people surrender to Jesus Christ doesn’t mean they are living and thinking like the Lord would desire. The apostle Paul spoke about the need to “NOT” be conformed to the thinking of the world but to be “TRANSFORMED” in our thinking so our choices and actions would be pleasing to the Lord and our lives would be blessed. The problem is that we so often exchange transformation of thinking for learning doctrine, which often hardens our hearts rather than making them softer towards the Lord. Transformation is a process rather than a belief and transformation doesn’t happen without God’s help and our cooperation.

If you find some things in scripture that are hard to swallow, or hard to apply, you are not alone. I have walked with God since 1969 and still find some things difficult that God calls me to do or believe. Some things cause me to outright argue with God or at least invoke in me desire to avoid them. Why? Because my salvation is still in progress and God is not through helping me to get a Kingdom mindset rather than a selfish worldly one. This leads me to voice a concern I have with modern preaching and teaching in the body of Christ.

This is now the fourth article exploring whether God changes his mind. What we think about God’s willingness to change things based on how and why we pray makes all the difference in the world as to if we are motivated to pray as we are challenged by scripture to pray. If you have not read articles 1-3 please do so before reading this one.

If you gave your life to Christ your heart had to go through a transformational process where you changed from wanting to live for your self-interest to wanting to please God as your top priority. If your heart didn’t change salvation was never truly realized regardless how many times you prayed the sinner’s prayer. After all, God is more interested in transformation than he is in just forgiveness.   

This is the third part in a series that asks the question, “Does God change his mind?” The purpose of writing this series is because many believers have been taught a mixture of concepts and doctrines so that their theology doesn’t work in real life. As a result much of what they have learned doesn’t produce the maturity God wants and expects, and our ability to change the culture is, for the most part, nonexistent. Instead of being salt and light to our culture, we are changed by the humanistic culture we live in.

Many of us probably would say very strongly that we don’t believe in myths but if we looked closer at our beliefs we might find out that our strong held beliefs are based on someone’s ideas or desires, rather than on history, fact and what comes from the word of God. Many of our beliefs have been constructed by what we have been taught rather than from what we have observed. When it comes to biblical beliefs the same holds true.  We have constructed a belief system which was gained from pastors and teachers throughout our lifetime. These people may have taught us the word of God or they could have mixed truth with myth without even realizing it.

This is a multi part topic and this is the second in the series in asking the question, “Does God Change His Mind,” or has God set in motion everything that ever will happen? The “CHANGEABLENESS” of God is not in question as to whether God is reliable and consistent with his character and action, but does God change with regard to our behavior or heart attitude.

Believe it or not, the title is an important question because what we believe about how God responds or doesn’t respond to our actions, especially with regards to our prayers, makes all the difference in the world. Prayer is the most vital link we have with God because scripture reveals, in general, the mind and will of God for the believer but it is prayer that creates and develops the relational side of our relationship.

Have you ever wondered how you would change your past if you had the ability to go back in time? I think most of us would make different choices if we are honest about the past.  It might be about taking one kind of job over another or moving to a new city or even the friends we chose. Regardless of the individual details, our choices about the future have significant effects our life, both in terms of our fulfillment and our fruitfulness.