Can a Leopard Change its Spots?

31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

Read Exodus 12:29-13:16

In the film Dumbo a flock of crows pose some fun questions. “Have you ever seen a horse fly? Have you ever seen a house fly?” Of course we have, but only due to a play on words.  But we have never seen an elephant fly. It is impossible for elephants to fly, but Dumbo defies our understanding of nature and flies.

By a single swift pronouncement Pharaoh makes Israel free. Israel no longer has to toil under the lash of an oppressor. They may now enjoy the freedom of choice.

Often times we in the modern world define freedom as the ability to choose. It is a virtue to always have our options open and be able to freely choose them. As enticing as this definition of freedom sounds, we may actually be surprised that we are not as free as we think. We all have hidden constraints, our family upbringing, the countries where we were born in, and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time. Most self-respecting people will actually acknowledge that we are preconditioned by our DNA and follow its design. Ironically Richard Dawkins may be right when he asserts, “DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”

We are only free to be what we were designed to be.

As much as a bald eagle would wish to run like a cheetah, it never will be able to freely choose this. A cheetah may wish to fly like an eagle, but it will never be able to freely choose this.

Can the … the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good.
     Jer. 13:23

Yes, the leopard can change his spots! The beauty of the Gospel is precisely this: Theology can conquer biology. Grace can override our inherent desire to sin. Our baser instincts may be overruled. We are actually free to choose. We are actually free once again.

We are made in the image of God. God by his nature is completely free and only chooses to do good.  True freedom comes to us by grace. Grace conditions our situations so that we will always freely choose the good. Let us accept Grace and let it transform us. True freedom conditions us to always want to choose good.

Today as you pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Pray that “God would by his Spirit take away from ourselves and others all blindness, weakness, … and by his grace make us able and willing to know, do, and submit to his will in all things, with the like humility, cheerfulness, faithfulness, diligence, zeal, sincerity, and constancy, as the angels do in heaven.”(Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 192)