Belief You Can Change In

Back in the middle of November, the debt commission, whose job it was to come up with a bipartisan solution to our national debt, came out with their plan. It created a bipartisan reaction. Everyone hated it. Here's a quote from the story linked above.

While 66% of voters in the survey say cutting spending was a "major" reason in their support of a candidate in the midterms, a whopping 70% of adults say they are uncomfortable with cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and defense programs -- which just happen to be the biggest sources of federal spending. Another 59% say they're uncomfortable about raising taxes (on gasoline, for example) or changing the tax code (like eliminating deductions on home mortgages) to reduce the deficit. And another 57% are uncomfortable about raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 by 2075 to reduce the deficit. Said NBC/WSJ co-pollster Bill McInturff (R): “We found a way to unite everybody -- which is producing a deficit commission that managed to irritate every different political constituency.” What was even more amazing about this data: Fully 36% of EVERYONE we surveyed said they were uncomfortable on all THREE facets of the debt commission proposals.

My intention today is not to talk about the schizophrenia of us Americans who want the government to stop collecting so much money and stop spending so much money while not wanting to government to make cuts or pay for what they spend. My intention is to look at the relationship between belief and change. Obama ran on a slogan of Change we can believe in. What is interesting is what order those words go in. Is the change the agent of belief or the result? Often times we think of changing to be more like God.   But the Bible says that we are not capable of changing ourselves into anything that will be acceptable to God. Rather, the Bible says that once we have embraced Christ through the forgiveness bought at the cross, we are changed by Him.   "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:17 NAS)   That is not change you can believe in, that is belief you can change in!