We say things like, "You haven’t changed a bit" or if they really have changed a lot, "You look well". What you can’t really say is, "Goodness me, you look a lot older and uglier"

So, it is change according to God I want to speak about. If we really want to go to heaven we have to change. We have to be suitable, introduced by somebody (Jesus) who is already there who has God’s ear and the barrier of sin must have been removed.

We can’t go as we like. I don’t know how you imagine heaven but it is literally going to be out of this world. There will be no sin there, no death, no illness no failing bodies and we will spend eternity fully occupied with the glory of Divine Persons with no more thought of self. Even natural relationships as we know them today will cease.

We are told in 1, Corinthians 15 that we are also going to need a change of body before we are joined to the Lord. We don’t know what that will look like but we are told that it will be like unto his glorious body and when we see him we shall be like him.

Our body, this body, when made fit for the Lord’s presence will be changed from a corruptible body to an incorruptible one, from a natural body to a spiritual one, a mortal body to an immortal body, not subject to death ever again. All that will happen when the Lord comes and the dead in Christ will be raised first and then we the living who remain shall all be caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall be for ever with the Lord.

All that relates to this body. That is the whole point of the victory over sin and death, so the believer’s body dead or alive is of special interest to God and just as we are exhorted to offer our bodies a living sacrifice to God when alive, ("Our intelligent service" the Apostle says) the Believer would know how to act intelligently in relation to their dead body in so far as they are able to will what happens to it, as it awaits resurrection> But that is another subject.

We are not told we will go to heaven at the Rapture (The Lord’s second coming) but we are told ‘we will for ever be with the Lord’. Heaven will be our eternal destiny but a lot will happen between the Rapture as we call it and the final eternal state and through all those amazing times we will be with the Lord.

I would have to say that watching him shepherd the nations, reign over the earth, dispense justice and resolve every matter, political, religious and moral is something I am fascinated by. We are told very little about heaven itself although Paul was caught up into the third heaven and saw and heard things just too amazing to utter and that was only the third level. We are going into Heaven itself but I am not spiritual enough to begin to grasp what that will be like.

That same scripture in Corinthians tells us that first there is that which is natural and secondly, there is that which is spiritual and the spiritual is to replace the natural.

Another key scripture in Hebrews 10 is that, "He (God) takes away the first that he might establish the second" and I have always found that scripture extremely helpful because it sort of gives you the key and the whole reason for everything and puts it all into perspective. "The first man out of dust, the second man out of heaven". As Christians, we are involved in that process of change until we conform through grace and through the Gospel to the image of the heavenly one. That is not too difficult to understand is it? It is almost common sense.

Whether mankind accepts the story of Adam and Eve or not ( and as Christians we accept all scripture as God’s inspired word), there cannot be a thinking person alive that would not admit that this poor world is just riddled with sin and that in so many ways we all are too….in our actions and especially in our motives. The impossibility of conforming to the ten commandments tells us that our very nature is sinful and that if God is holy and righteous and can never compromise, never deny himself, if we are going to be allowed into his presence and to feel comfortable there, something pretty amazing has to change. Something amazing has to happen

Well, something pretty amazing has happened. Rather than dispense with us, rather than consume this poor world and mankind as a lost cause, God has "Because of his great love wherewith he loved us has", (Ephesians 2) come into the very place of sin, in the person of Jesus, in the most attractive way as a babe in a manger as if to say, "I mean you no harm" and having lived among the human race as a real man, pressed upon on all sides by the grotesque consequences of sin (yet himself remaining sinless), he went on, in perfect obedience to the will of God to offer himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

More than that, Jesus was made sin for us the scripture tells us. Made the very thing and he bore the wrath of a holy and righteous God on our behalf. He was also buried on our behalf which puts us in our old sinful state out of God’s sight for ever and then he was raised on our behalf, free of all that necessitated his sacrifice. Through faith we can now be as free of sin in Gods presence as Jesus is. Justified on the principle of faith.

How do we get that assurance……by repentance towards God and faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by faith, not works that we are saved. We are justified on the principle of faith and God views us as in Christ from that moment onward, clothed not in our own righteousness but in his righteousness and "We boast in hope of the glory of God" Paul tells us.

Pretty amazing isn’t it? Wonderful. Our status in Christ is secure for ever. We are not saved today and lost tomorrow. God was perfectly satisfied with the sacrifice of Jesus and to try and bring our own works to God to supplement what Jesus has done is to suggest that he didn’t quite do enough and that his sufferings were in vain. Those who believe you can be saved today and lost tomorrow confuse standing with state. Our standing in Christ never changes but of course, we are still susceptible to sin, we still do sin and our state varies. We can lose the joy of our salvation but not salvation itself.

Well, that is the first step in the process of change from one order of things, from old order of things to the new order of things, from the first man out of dust to the second man out of heaven, from what is natural to what is spiritual.

The idea, however is that the process of change then goes on within us, affecting our actions as well until Gods work is complete in us and all that remains is the changed body to clothe that work and make us suitable and comfortable in the presence of Jesus and hid God.

We need help with that process of change and the Lord Jesus has seen to that. He told his disciples that after he had returned to heaven he would ask the Father to send some help for them in the person of the Holy Spirit, another person of the Godhead who was prepared to take up a relative position of service in relation to the other two persons of the Godhead revealed to us as the Father and Jesus in order to serve us too.

At Pentecost, you will remember, the Holy Spirit came and from that moment through this past 2000 years or so, he has been involved in securing trophies for Christ, in changing people to become free of the old sinful order of things and to have an appetite for the new,

We also need to make way for the Holy Spirit. Obviously, as God, he is capable of anything and because of the lowly place he has taken we are warned in scripture not to treat his presence lightly or offend him, yet he works patiently with us adding his strength to our weakness, helping us to deal with things that are not pleasing to God while at the same time spreading abroad God’s love in our hearts, helping us too to cry "Abba father" and to appreciate God as our Father. We need to make room for him, be in communion with him.

He is our link with heaven and with Jesus where he is. It is he, Jesus said, "That will guide us into all the Truth" so without him we are not going to get very far in Divine things. As believers we really need him. He is indispensable to us.

We need to ask for the Spirit. The Lord tells his disciples that the Father is waiting to give them the Spirit but that they need to ask and so do we. I find I need to keep on asking, because my experience of the Holy Spirit is not an earth shattering one as it has been with some, it is a very gradual realisation of his presence and power.

Well, I read from Timothy because I find it a very encouraging epistle when thinking about change or as Paul refers to it "Timothy’s Progress"

Paul speaks of himself as having been a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent and overbearing man. He says that God showed him mercy because he did it in ignorance and his conversion, as we know, was dramatic. He says that "Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners of whom he is the first". I believe Paul really meant that. He was probably horrified about what he had done as he looked back on his past sometimes. The stoning of Stephen………………….etc

Perhaps you can identify a dramatic moment in your conversion. Many can’t. There are many who can identify a period in their lives when they came to the Lord but not one life-changing, overwhelming moment.

Many have been brought up in a Christian environment and therefore the process of change may not be so apparent. Ongoing spiritual change may not be so apparent either. We are all different and no two experiences are the same in the way in which God deals with us but I want to say that whether you can identify one dramatic moment or like Timothy, you have been brought up in a Christian environment, change and progress can be just as real.

Timothy obviously got a lot of Christian help from his Grandmother Lois and his Mother Eunice yet Paul says he recognises genuine faith in Timothy himself. Paul obviously spent a lot of time teaching and helping Timothy too and he exhorts him never to depart from that teaching and more importantly, to remember who taught him.

I believe the progress Paul wanted everyone to see in Timothy was not worldly progress, ecclesiastical progress, promotion and the like. It seems to me to be much more linked to his becoming like Paul, like Jesus and being a model for believers. No one is to despise his youth so these things are open to young men and women too.

It was not just that Timothy was to learn and become educated in Divine things but to learn from someone who encapsulated all the teachings, Paul himself, so that when faced with a difficult situation in any of the assemblies he would not just know ‘chapter and verse’ but how to apply himself to the matter. In Timothy, I believe Paul recognised a safe pair of hands.

Well, are we changing, are we growing? Are we, like Timothy, making progress? Is it evident to our brethren? Are we beginning to prefer Christ to self, beginning to look forward to being with Jesus and relinquishing things here?What a challenge to me that is.

Has there been a change in your interests, in your spirit, your conversation, your appetites in life and so on, that might lead others to say "I can’t put my finger on it but old so and so has changed somehow?"

I want to tell you not to become too discouraged and don’t get too disappointed if you have a temporary lapse. You are not alone in that. The devil will accuse you and raise doubts but you may have changed more than you realise.

Remember, the Father is overseeing our circumstances and using them to change us. The Lord Jesus is talking to the Father about us and interceding for us even when we don’t realise it and the Holy Spirit is in us, gradually helping us to deal with the old sinful nature, and working patiently towards forming Christ in us. When that work is finished, his last service to us will be to quicken our mortal bodies to prepare us to be with our Saviour. Scripture makes it clear that the Holy Spirit will be involved at the Rapture. All three Divine persons will be involved, in unison, in that great moment.

What will it mean to him, having indwelt us all our Christian life, fashioning and forming us against all the odds to quicken us then and, so to speak, hand us over to the Lord, his work complete.

Well, we mustn’t resist the process of change, we need to welcome it. We must draw upon Divine power but we also have to work at it. For example, Paul tells us that "It is by the Spirit we are to put to death the deeds of the body". The Holy Spirit will help us but we have to do it.

Can I also say that…..this process of change is not to make us more religious, more legal, more judgemental, more miserable. It is liberating and the goal Paul tells us is that we continue to change from glory to glory until we all arrive as Paul says in Ephesians 4 "At the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ".

I couldn’t possibly expand on that but it sounds pretty good to me. Shall we go for it?