El­der Arnold Gopeesingh

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I un­der­stood as a child; I thought as a child, but when I be­came a man, I put away child­ish things.  For now we see through a glass, dark­ly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as al­so I am known.  And now abideth faith, hope, and char­i­ty, these three; but the great­est of these is char­i­ty."

— 1 Corinthi­ans 13:11 to 13

One of the truths that come out of the above scrip­ture which the Apos­tle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, is the fact that in life, changes will take place. Try hard, as we may; our bod­ies are con­tin­u­al­ly chang­ing right be­fore our very eyes. There are those who work day in and day out fight­ing this change; I have no prob­lem with that, but the re­al­i­ties are right be­fore our very eyes.

If we are talk­ing about progress or suc­cess along this path, change will take place if we are go­ing to ac­com­plish our goals. Look at our world to­day and let me high­light tech­nol­o­gy. It is not the same even go­ing back a few years ago, great change has tak­en place.

The Apos­tle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthi­ans 5:17: “There­fore if any man be in Christ, he is a new crea­ture: old things are passed away; be­hold all things are be­come new.” Paul is say­ing that in Christ, trans­for­ma­tion takes place. As you walk in the rev­e­la­tion of God’s word, your life will not be the same.

We read in Eph­esians 4:22 to 24: “That ye put off con­cern­ing the for­mer con­ver­sa­tion the old man, which is cor­rupt ac­cord­ing to the de­ceit­ful lusts; and be re­newed in the spir­it of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which af­ter God is cre­at­ed in right­eous­ness and true ho­li­ness.” God now dwelling in you by His spir­it gives you the abil­i­ty to live above all that is dis­pleas­ing to God. Re­mem­ber, “You have put on the new man.” Je­sus Christ now re­sides in you. Paul, in writ­ing, said, “I can do all things in Christ.” One of the things, how­ev­er, we must note for trans­for­ma­tion to take place there must be a part­ner­ing be­tween God and your­self.

I would like to briefly share some of the ar­eas that we, to­geth­er with God, should work to bring about change. First­ly, in the area of acts that vi­o­late the word of God, Je­sus said to a woman in John 8:11: “Nei­ther do I con­demn thee: go, and sin no more.” In Christ, there is the pow­er to live above sin­ful acts, for you are now part­ner­ing with God. I have heard peo­ple say that “they are no Je­sus,” but do not for­get that when you com­mit your life to Christ, He now takes up res­i­dence in you through His Spir­it. In you lies the full po­ten­tial to walk right even in this un­god­ly world. Here is the key: you must want to do it and al­low God to help you. God can break all those vices that have hin­dered you over the years and brought about de­struc­tion to you. He said, “Call on me, and I will an­swer thee.”

Sec­ond­ly, in the area of us, train­ing our­selves to speak what is right and god­ly to oth­ers. In the book of Colos­sians 4:6, it is writ­ten, “Let your speech be al­ways with grace, sea­soned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to an­swer every man.” As you jour­ney on plan­et earth, it is im­por­tant that our di­a­logue be one that draws oth­ers to God; through you, they must hear the words of God. How of­ten do we find our­selves, in­stead of lift­ing up some­one, putting them down; our voice should be one of hope, faith and love. Je­sus, as He walked among the peo­ple of His time, showed them a bet­ter way, bring­ing light where there was dark­ness.

Third­ly, in our at­ti­tude or the way we re­late to oth­ers, we must at all times main­tain that hu­man touch. Qual­i­ties such as com­pas­sion, em­pa­thy, love, kind­ness, gen­tle­ness and for­give­ness, just to name a few, must not just be spo­ken of but demon­strat­ed in our lives.

The way we treat oth­ers can be an in­di­ca­tion of how much we un­der­stand who God is and how much we be­lieve His word. We live in a world to­day that is filled with vi­o­lence, hate, en­vy and mal­ice; hence, the rea­son for a peo­ple to come forth show­ing god­li­ness. John wrote, “If a man says, ‘I love God and hate his broth­er,’ he is a liar: for he that loveth not his broth­er whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20). We can­not con­fess to love God yet live hat­ing and de­spis­ing oth­ers.

In clos­ing, life is pro­gres­sive, and we must be will­ing to change for the bet­ter. Some­one who sees change as a threat will not grow.

May God rich­ly bless and keep you.