In case you didn’t notice, we are in an election year. 16 years ago, when we were also in an election year, one candidate for president had a slogan that really caught on, and helped propel him to the White House. Do you remember that slogan? “Hope and Change”.
When there is a change in the top elected leader of our country, people hope the new president will change things for the better. But no matter how much the new president tries to change things, it’s usually not as much change- or at least not as much change in a good direction- as we had hoped for.
That shouldn’t surprise us, because the kinds of changes that our society needs most- people being responsible, kinder toward each other, more generous and less greedy, more honest and more loving toward each other, more faithful to their marriage partners and more determined to carry out their proper roles in marriage and family the way God designed them to be- can’t really be brought about through a change in laws or political leaders. You can change people’s outward behavior to a certain extent through laws, if they are enforced. But to bring about real change in these areas requires the ability to change people’s hearts. Laws, and the authority of governments to punish and use force, don’t have the power to do that.
But there is something- or I should say someone- who can change people’s hearts. And when he changes their hearts, it also changes their behavior toward other people. Let me give you an example:
Around 2000 years ago, there was a certain well-educated man who was very proud and sure of himself. He tried very hard to follow the ways his forefathers had handed down to him, and thought he was serving God by doing so. When what seemed to him like a new religious movement arose that rejected some of what he had been taught, even though this movement wasn’t doing anything that hurt anyone, he thought this was a dangerous movement that must be stopped. So that’s what he tried to do. He had members of this new movement arrested and put in jail. He even got some of them put to death. He chased most of them out of the main city of his country, then set out toward another large city where many of them had fled, in order to have them arrested and punished.
But while he was on the way to the city, something happened to this man that changed his heart. Instead of priding himself on living a better life than others, he became someone who saw himself as the worst of sinners, and was amazed that God had been merciful and forgave him, and loved even someone like him. Instead of hating the movement he had been using force and violence against, he became someone who loved what this movement was about; and he worked harder to spread it than he had been working before to stop it. But he worked in a different way. He never used force and violence to try to spread this movement; he just spoke words that he hoped would change the hearts of those who opposed it, just as his heart had been changed. He willingly endured threats and violence done to him because he spoke up for this movement. Instead of taking revenge on those who did such things to him, he prayed for them. Along with other members of this movement, he lived a life of kindness toward others; of refraining from greed and lust; of helping the weak and needy; all to give honor to the God who so loved him and had forgiven him his sins.
What changed this man’s heart? Get out a Bible and read Acts 9:1-12, and you will hear how and when it happened. Then read what the man himself said about it when he looked back on that time, in Philippians 3:3-11, and 1 Timothy 1:12-17. You’ll see that the man I’m talking about was a Jew named Saul, now better known as the Apostle Paul. And what changed this man’s heart and life was when he came to know Jesus. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, changes the hearts and lives of those who trust in him.
And he doesn’t stop his work of changing you, once you have first come to believe in him. I was baptized as a baby, and in my earliest memories, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t already know Jesus as my Savior. (That doesn’t make me a better Christian than others who were brought to Christ later; it’s just how God worked in my life.) But Jesus keeps coming to me in his word, and making me appreciate even more how much I need the forgiveness he won for me on the cross, and how good it is to have it. And he keeps working in me a heart that doesn’t want to follow the sinful thoughts and desires that keep arising from the sinful flesh I was born with; a heart that is sorry for them and turns away again when I do stumble into those things; a heart that wants to be more and more like him, in forgiving those who have hurt me, being kind to others, living my life according to God’s good plans for things like marriage and family and attitude toward my earthly government; willing to let others have “the bigger piece of the pie”; wanting them to have the same forgiveness, peace with God, sure hope of heaven, and heavenly purpose and guidance for their earthly lives that my Lord Jesus has given me.
So if you vote in the coming election, go ahead and vote for whomever you think will do the most good and/or the least harm to the people of our nation. But for real change- change of hearts; change of eternal destiny; true change of lives that comes from the heart- look to Jesus; and invite others as well to get to know the one who died on the cross for their sins, and rose from the dead to live as their Lord and Savior. For as that same changed man I’ve been talking about- the Apostle Paul, was inspired by God to write in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 (NIV84)- “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come! All this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself though Christ.”
