God's New Thing

"Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." {Isaiah 43:19}

Have you ever heard someone say that the church is always 20 years behind? I believe it's true because we argue about the validity of something for the first 10 years and then spend the next 10 years trying to make it work. Why do we fear new things?

God told the Prophet Isaiah that He was getting ready to do a new thing. You can almost hear God saying, "You better get ready because it's coming!" God was prepared to put roads in the wilderness and rivers in the desert if it meant accomplishing His purpose. Can I tell you that God hasn't changed?

I think the problem for many of us is that we hear verses like "I am God...I change not..." and think that God is somehow stuck in a rut. In other words: He only works through certain prescribed methods and ideas. However, it is in times like this that we need to be reminded that our God is a creative God. God may have ceased with the creation of the earth on the 6th day but He never ceased being creative. All throughout the Bible we can read about a God who constantly does new things. This whole idea of a systematic God was the downfall of the Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' day. The truly believed that God was confined by their religious practice. In their ignorance, they completely missed the revelation of God before them.

It is my prayer for the church that we do not miss what God is doing in our days. This is not about going against the foundations of our faith; nor is it a rant against religious practice. It is a call that we do not lose sight of a creative God should He choose to move in a way that is against our conventional way of thinking. We must be willing to take a serious and honest look at how God is moving in the world, the people that He is using today, and the way in which ministry is being done. We cannot be content to look the same way we did 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. We must be willing to embrace all that God wants to do for today's generation. His truth does not change and we should not compromise, but we must be willing to change.

The strange thing about much of what is considered "new" is that we can find a lot of it in the OT. Years ago, dance was considered sinful. Yet we know that David danced before the Lord. It wasn't that long ago that people did not use instruments in the church (much less modern instruments), but we find David using all types of instruments when He established the praise and worship ministry of his day. The list goes on and on: media, drama, and all of the arts. All of these things should be a part of the creativity of God's people in an effort to worship Him rather than an escape from the mundane activities of life.

We were created in the image of a creative God. The creativity that God has placed within His people needs to be embraced and used for His glory. Let the church paint, sing, perform, and dance for the glory of God. Let us remember that God is more than willing to do a new thing in the earth. "May His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

The question we need to ask today is not "What is God doing?". The question we need to ask is "How does God want to use us?" Then we must embrace all that God wants to do in and through us to reach this generation for the kingdom of God.