It's amazing how we've changed the way we listen to music. Years ago we listened to what we called records or LPs: big round disks with seven or eight songs on each side. Then came 45s, with one song on each side (usually only one hit song and a useless song on the other side). Then there were reel-to-reel tape players, from big 7-inch ones down to 3-inch. Eight-tracks came next and, at about the same time, cassette tapes. Today CDs have replaced cassette tapes, and more and more music is listened to on small players that download and play songs in the mp3 format. It's hard to keep up!

The same goes for computer storage. First there were 5¼-inch disks, then 3½-inch disks. Today CDs are popular, but often DVDs are used to store even more information — and most of us use a memory stick to hold and transfer data. Computer technology is changing so fast that it takes just a few years for something to become outdated. I'm re-typing a science fiction novel that I wrote ten years ago because it's in a word processing format that no longer can be run on any computer.

Businesses wage a constant battle to keep their equipment upgraded. They have to come out with new products and new ways to do things and serve their customers if they want to stay in business.

What about our personal lives? When it comes to God, how important is the need to change in order to be the people He wants us to be?

In this series of weekend messages we're talking about “Living a Relevant Life.” We all want our lives to count for something. We want to feel that we're relevant, that we have a reason for being here, and that there's a plan for our lives. How necessary is it to be able and willing to change if we want our lives to be relevant, important, and devoted to carrying out God's purposes?

THE CALL TO CHANGE
The apostle Paul, who wrote a major portion of our New Testament, was a self-satisfied person. When it came to living a good life, having a religious faith and religious practice that were adequate, he thought he was doing well, and he saw no need to change much about his life. In a letter that he wrote to the Philippian Christians (which is in our New Testaments), he described his previous self-satisfied view of himself: “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” (Philippians 3:4-6) In his previous estimation of himself he had been the ideal religious person. In fact, he had been so enthusiastic about his own Jewish faith that he persecuted Jews who had left the faith to become Christians (hence his reference to persecuting the church). He described his life as “faultless.” Apparently he saw no reason for any significant change.

However, that changed! Paul went on to write, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” (Philippians 3:7) When Paul met Jesus (he didn’t meet Him in person, but nevertheless it was a very real spiritual experience that happened on the road to the city of Damascus) it changed his view of not needing to change!

When Paul looked back on everything that he thought had made him a good person, he referred to it as “rubbish,” not worth anything at all. He now had a new goal. He wrote, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11) In other words, Paul wanted to know Jesus like he'd never known Him before. He wanted to have the power of Christ in him: the power that raised Christ from the dead. Even in his suffering for trying to follow Jesus, he wanted to feel close to Jesus. Though being a follower of Jesus often requires sacrifice, Paul’s final goal was to experience resurrection after death into an amazing eternal life with Jesus.

Paul quickly added, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me.” (Philippians 3:12) Paul was no longer self-satisfied; he had a divinely-inspired dissatisfaction because he hadn't taken hold of Christ to the degree that he knew Christ had taken hold of him in a wonderful relationship!

While we were in Mexico I often took our little one-year-old granddaughter Ana for a walk. She has just learned to walk, and she can walk on her own — but when she wants to go over rough, rocky places, over steep steps, or through long grass, she reaches for your hand. She grasps your hand with her tiny fingers, but it's not enough. I have to grasp her little hand with a much tighter grip. Her grip wouldn’t be enough to hold us together and keep her from falling, though of course she doesn't know that. You and I can know that our grip on Jesus is much, much weaker than His grip on us — and our goal can be to keep changing and growing so that our grip on Him increases! As Paul said, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me.”

Jesus Christ has grabbed on to you — or, if you're a spiritual seeker, He wants to! You can never get a grip on Him like He has on you, but you can try! That was Paul’s goal, and it should be ours, too. He went on to write, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Paul wouldn’t let the successes of his past — or even the failures (like persecuting Jesus' precious church) — keep him from being who he should be, now and in the future. God made certain that the words Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians made it all the way to us, because we're supposed to be the same way! We aren't supposed to stay the way we are. We’re supposed to get a grip on Christ like we've never had before, trying to hold onto Him like He holds us. It’s an impossible goal, but we’re supposed to aim for it anyway.

DESIRING / RESISTING CHANGE
We're a strange mixture. On the one hand we like change, and on the other hand we don't like it.

All of us have wired into us by God the desire to push the envelope, try something new, do more than we've done before. I saw this with our six-year-old grandson Josiah last week in Mexico. He had just been given a bicycle by someone in their church and was anxious to learn how to ride it. The day I arrived he needed someone to help him get onto the bike, to give him a little push, and to help him stop without tipping over. He kept at it, and soon he could stop on his own but he still needed someone to hold the bike and give him a push to get going. After a while he didn't need the push any longer, and then came the time he didn't stop at the end of the driveway: he turned around and pedaled back up to the house, with a big grin on his face! We have it built into us to keep pushing the limits.

On the other hand, we’re resistant to change. I've told the story before about a young bride who baked her first ham for her new husband. She cut off the ends of the ham and put them beside the main part in the pan. When asked by her husband why she did that, she said, “Because Mom always did.” The next time they were at a family gathering he asked her mother why she cut the ends off and put them beside the rest of the ham. She answered, “Because my mom always did.” The grandma was there, so he asked her why she did it. She said, “Because my pan was too small for the whole ham to fit.” We can be resistant to change, sometimes for no better reason than the fact that we've never done things differently.

There's also the comfort that comes with the familiar. For instance, sometimes when a person overcomes an addiction to alcohol the family has to make a very difficult, tremendous adjustment. They’ve lived so long with the non-functioning family member that now they have trouble relating to him when he’s functioning! We don't always handle change well or even want it, even though it may be a good change. Even if it's a change for the worse, one that's beyond our control, we can resist it to the point where it does even more harm because we’re unwilling to adapt.

Sometimes we can be so comfortable with something that's not right that even though it causes us pain or problems, we keep on doing it the same way or being the same way. Resistance to change can be our worst enemy.

BEING COMMITTED TO CHANGING FOR THE BETTER
Jesus often said, “Follow me.” In the gospel of Matthew alone there are six incidents recorded of Jesus’ using that phrase. What does it mean to follow Jesus? First it implies that He's found us, and secondly it implies that we’re supposed to leave where He has found us and move on: to change where we are and follow Him. You can't be a follower of Jesus unless you actually follow Him, being willing to leave the place where He found you!

How do we change? The Lord often uses circumstances to change us. Circumstances change — sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Either way, it’s a call from Christ to change and to adapt. What changes are happening in your life? God wants you to use those changes to become more like Him, to do His will in a way that maybe you haven't done it in the past.

When you change from being single to being married, it means a different call on your life because now you’re called to be a Christ-like mate. When you find yourself single after being married, for whatever reason, it’s a call to live out Christ's will in a new way, one that can be initially painful and hard. When your situation changes from having good health to having poor health, God is calling you to change: to become more Christ-like in your sufferings and to find new ways to serve Him because you can't serve Him in exactly the same way you did before.

When your job status changes, it’s a new call from Christ. How will you grow in Him through this change? In what ways is He giving you new ways to serve Him?

God's call changes, and He calls you to change in some ways when your life changes. Every change, every new set of circumstances, is an opportunity to grow and to become more like Jesus, to get a grip on Him like you've never had before, to launch out, trying new things, holding on to Him as He holds even more tightly on to you!

God uses other people to change us. If someone hurts you, that person needs to change how they are, or how they relate to people, or what they do. However, the Lord also calls us to grow and to change in a positive way through the hurt. God also changes us through other people’s positive, inspiring example. Look for good examples of how to be more like Jesus and to live better for Him.

God uses His word to change us. Read it regularly; the constant, positive input of God's very own written-down Word can't help but change us for the better if we let it.

Another very important thing to do is to pray to be open to the inner transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to change you from the inside out!

If you want to be able to listen to the newest music, you have to keep up with the technology that’s used to sell and distribute it. If you own a computer, you have to keep up with current technology or you won’t be able to use it much longer. If a company wants to stay competitive and relevant to its customers, it has to be willing to meet their demands.

Life changes all the time, and we're called by Christ to change all the time because where He graciously found us and forgave us is not where He wants to leave us. Let's be like Paul and be able to say, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on . . . .”