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Such Were Some of You
Do you ever stop and think about old friends that you used to have or old hobbies that you used to spend time on? How your personality is different than it was a few years ago or how your goals in life have changed from when you were a kid? Every once in a while, I, like every other human, find myself thinking about the changes I have seen occur in my life and, even, in my personality. It seems the more I reflect on my own life and the lives around me, the old saying becomes truer and truer: "The only constant in life is change."
Did you know God expects you to change? After all, He made you. He knew that your decisions and experiences would mold who you become and the things you are interested in. He knew that at the end of your life you would be a much different person than who you were at the beginning of it. In fact, He wants that!
Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3). God wants you to change! The irony Jesus points out to us is that the change He wants from us is for us to go back to the way we used to be as children! Isn't that impossible? No, because this doesn't mean to cry or be helpless like a baby would or to go back to being tiny and helpless, but rather to return to being humble like a child. Jesus immediately clarified by saying, "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:4). Yes, God expects you to change. In fact, He says your place in the kingdom of God hinges on it.
Of all the changes God could demand of humanity, why this one? Let's answer that question with another question. Who makes for a better learner: a 40 year old adult or a 4 year old child? Undoubtedly, everyone will answer that the child is. Why? The child has no pretense or pride hindering its learning. It has no prejudice or opinion to hinder its listening. Now we begin to see why God might want us to become humble like a child. It is the foundation of learning God's ways.
God teaches many things that the world doesn't teach. The bad news for us is that as we have grown up in the world, we have changed to look more like the world. The good news is that God has designed us to change. The first (and most important!) change He wants us to make is to become humble like a little child. If we do that, we can receive instruction from our Father just as a small child ought. Then we will learn from Him what we are to change from and what we are to change into.
"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:9-11)
The Corinthians were willing to humble themselves like children and, consequently, they were able to change from the types of people that would not be able to inherit the kingdom of God into those who were washed, sanctified, and justified by Jesus and are able to inherit the kingdom of God. They were changed from idolaters, homosexuals and thieves into God's people.
God wants you to change. God calls you to change. If you humble yourself like a child, God promises to change you and will change you so that you, like the Corinthians before you, can be washed, sanctified, and justified by Jesus. Then years from now as you think back on how much you've changed and how you were unable to inherit the kingdom of God because of who you used to be, you can say, "such was I, but I was washed, I was sanctified, I was justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God."
