Forever Changed

By

Ken Bryan

 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:11&12 KJV)

What an amazing statement.  Two sentences proclaimed by an angel and suddenly everything known to man regarding his relationship with God changed.  Of course at this time of year we find great comfort and joy at the occasion of Christ’s birth.  I wanted to open with the above scripture, not only because of the season, but rather to see what God did immediately after the birth of Jesus.

A baby was born in a little town of Bethlehem and He was to be the savior of the world.  His birth had been prophesied repeatedly for hundreds of years, so at the announcement of the birth it would be natural to expect great changes.  In the natural that was truly the case.  Any of you who have ever experienced the birth of a child can relate to a life-changing event.  One day you’re at one station in life and then the next everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same again.  Your station is now different. You have become a father or mother and despite the times you may want to resign your position you can’t.  So if it is normal for any baby to bring total change to peoples lives then it is understandable that the birth of the Savior of the world would immediately have a huge impact on people’s lives.

So with such a huge change how was the average person’s life changed?  Well let’s see, hummm.  Okay let’s try it this way, who on earth was aware that a savior had been born?  Joseph and Mary, good, how about Herod, Simeon, Anna, the wise men and a few shepherds?  You know outside of heaven these few people were quite possibly the only ones who were aware that  birth of Jesus. Your life and my life changed also that night over 2,000 years ago, but we didn’t know it at the time of course, we weren’t born.  In fact, sometimes I think we still struggle today with knowing just how drastically our lives did change at Jesus’ birth.  What I want to look at in this article is what God did immediately after Jesus was born. What allowed us to see the great changes that were going to occur through Him?  The answer from the scriptures is that God chose not to reveal the changes to mankind.  In fact the early years of Jesus’ life only addressed His visit to the temple at age twelve. 

What I’m asking you to see is that after the birth of Christ, an event that forever changed the lives of mankind through salvation and our relationship with God,  Jesus did nothing that permitted the average person to know that a major change had occurred.  Oh, everything changed that night in Bethlehem, but it would be thirty years before Jesus revealed Himself in a fashion that caused men to sit up and take notice.

Guess what, it has happened again.  Are you aware of it?  No, not another birth of a savior, Jesus is the one and only, but a change is occurring.    Jesus Christ has ordained this change.  The change is in His church.  It was important to get you to look at the pattern of God regarding change to remind us that with God the results are often not readily seen.  Such is the case with what is taking place at this hour.  Change is occurring, have you noticed? Are you aware of it?   The threshold that is going to be crossed in this next season is beyond anything most of us have ever experienced in our church life.

If the Lord allows I will be sharing some of the things I have been shown regarding what is on the horizon for the church in our next newsletter.  Until then I have been so bold as to include instructions for these changes in the church as an insert to this newsletter.  I hope you enjoy them.