He does not change. He cannot and will not change.

When people see us at our high school reunions, they often say, “You haven’t changed a bit.” What they really mean is – you are so much like you were in high school that they would recognize you anywhere. Since I graduated from high school, I have aged, gained weight and lost weight, my hair has gotten curlier and begun to turn gray. More importantly, I have gained wisdom and learned new skills. I have married, become a mom and a MeeMa. I sure hope I have changed in these years because the old me couldn’t have handled all the life I’ve lived.

In my example above, some things about me improved and others worsened. Change is just like that, a move toward or away from a current state. In God’s case, He cannot move because His state is perfection. If He were able to improve, it would mean He is not currently perfect. If He could become less perfect, then He would no longer be God.

He is perfect; therefore, He does not change.

For I am the Lord, I do not change (Malachi 3:6).

God’s unchanging perfection creates confidence within His followers. We can trust that His will and plans never change.

God’s will is expressed in His Word (which also never changes). We may not be able to know everything that God wills, but we can know that any will expressed in His Word will always be His will.

God wills that all men be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). The fact that some people will refuse God’s gift does not affect the fact that it is what He desires, nor does it mean that He is not able to perform His will. He could force all people to be saved, but that is not His plan.

God wills that the Christian be sanctified. Here again, God does not force anyone to change, but He provides everything needed for our sanctification. These are examples of God’s desires to which He has placed the outcome partially in the hand of the individual.

But parts of God’s will are solely up to Him. He has willed the world and everything in it into existence. Nothing could stop it from being created. He has willed that man can know Him. God reveals Himself in such a way that each person must choose to respond in belief or disbelief. It is God’s will that everyone that wished to come to Him must come through His Son Jesus. There is no other way – because it is what God willed.

God’s purposes do not change. It was His purpose to make a chosen nation through the sons of Abraham, and He did. It was His purpose to call His people out of Egypt after 400 years of punishment for their rebellion, and He did. It was His purpose that His Son would be born to a virgin Jew at the appointed time in history, and He was. It was God’s will that He died and rose again, and He did. Whatever God purposed to do, will be done.

We can trust God to perform His will in our life. Once He has called us and received us unto salvation, we do not have to worry that He will change His mind. He will continue to work in our lives, purify and sanctify us. Knowing that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ Philippians 1:6. May His immutability give us peace and hope.

I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2 NIV).

He is the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17).