The Holidays: Not the Cover of Better Homes and Gardens

(By Lois Robinson)

WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FELL AND THINK ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS?

 AHHH, the holidays! For some it is an, “AHHH, I can’t wait until the Holidays are over!” And yet others say, “AHHH, Yeah! I can’t wait for the holidays to be here!” Whereas others say, “I’m numb, and it really doesn’t feel like the holidays because of very significant losses that have happened.”

I admit, I have experienced all of the above to some degree. But usually I find myself getting very self-focused and wanting to experience a form of utopia, sometimes literally expecting that picture on the front of a magazine where the whole family is gathered in the beautifully decorated BIG home with the fireplace aglow while everyone smiles and laughs with little appetizers in their hands. The table would be set with more silverware than I know what to do with, the huge delectable turkey in the middle of the table and everyone holding hands thanking God for His blessings. Dinner would be wonderful! No uncomfortable silences, everyone engaged with each other, not a cross word would be exchanged. We would all connect in meaningful ways. Then the coffee and MANY pies would be served. More laughing would occur as we moved into the huge living room with the fireplace (can’t leave that out!) as we began to play games as a family- fully knowing each other, connecting and engaging. Oh, can’t leave out the 6 inches of snow that spontaneously began to fall as well! AHHH, the Holidays!

 FUN WOULD BE HAD BY ALL!!!

 Well, I can honestly say, I have never really experienced that scenario with my family. What I have experienced is some of the above- the fireplace all aglow, some laughing, many awkward silences, forced conversation with some, ministering to some, holding my tongue with others and at times tactfully rebuking inappropriate behaviors demonstrated by the Christians in our family. I believe my family represents a microcosm of the world.

VERY MESSY AND UNCOMFORTABLE

Why is this?? Aren’t the holidays supposed to be celebratory? Hmmm. Yes, but we must remember what we are celebrating!

Is Thanksgiving a time when we engorge ourselves and say thank you out loud for everything we have but make sure we keep it short so the food doesn’t get cold? Laughing and getting a buzz?  Kicking back because, “Darn it, I deserve a break from all the stress!” Christmas has its own scene going on, and unfortunately it doesn’t involve the manger scene- that gets squeezed in where it can fit. It has become a HUGE event that the advertisers enjoy showing more and more commercials of what we need, what to buy so we can be cool (of course) and where to get it. Pipe in the Christmas scents through the store ventilation, play the music and put up the Santa so people will help us make more money for the stores revenue!!! YEAH!!!!!

Friends, is that what the Holidays are really about?  NO!

Thanksgiving is a time that we celebrate what we are thankful for. In the Christian faith, we are primarily thanking God for who He is, what He has done through Jesus and how He has provided for us. It’s not about us. Christmas is about us celebrating Jesus. Yes, Jesus. He came to save us from our brokenness- our broken families, our broken lives, even our broken hearts when our idealistic holiday picture didn’t happen the way we imagined. He came for the picture I described my family to be.

I wonder what your experiences are with the holidays. Where are you in your life? What are you looking forward to? What you are dreading?  Or you may just  want to wake up when it’s all over. I don’t know where you are, but I know where I want to be. I want to keep focused on the One the holidays exist for. I want to be a part of the holiday where I can be used by the Savior Himself to bring about change in a broken world, a broken family, my own broken life. I know that Jesus says in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (ESV).”

I would encourage all of us to be focused on this verse during the holiday season. I do believe that when we live that verse out, we will actually get closer to the picture I dream about. 

Hmmm, new thought. Maybe that desire I have is actually from God. When we get to the Great Banquet in Heaven :) A promise for all those that have placed faith in the One we celebrate,  Jesus Christ.

                          Blessings, My Friends

The Book of Love is Long and Boring

Dominick Baruffi

here are very few things that I am sure of in life. For instance, I am sure that the man who invented the sandwich deserves sainthood, knighthood, and a battlefield commission. I am sure that the push-to-start sink faucet was the worst idea ever. And I am fairly sure that nobody puts baby in a corner. Beyond that, all of life is a mystery to me. 

But when I consider myself, I find there is another thing that I am sure of: I am sure that I am hardwired for love. The funny thing is that I cannot really tell you why I feel this way, nor that I am even sure I know what I mean when I say it. I guess you could say that I’ve seen too many movies, or that I’m just being romantic and idealistic. But for whatever reason, I find that I speak about my desire for love with tremendous confidence. I seek it unconsciously, the way I seek water when I’m thirsty. I want to be loved.

Here’s what’s interesting about this: even as I seek to be loved, I find I’m not very good at loving others. I guess I try to love people, but only up to a point. Whenever it inconveniences me, I can usually excuse myself out of whatever I need to do. Typing these words is both embarrassing and convicting, but it’s the truth. 

When I was growing up, my youth pastor taught me that love is a selfless concern for another’s best good. Not a bad definition, all things considered. Today, however, I want to suggest a slight amendment.

There’s a song by Peter Gabriel called “The Book of Love” that begins with a fantastic line: “The book of love is long and boring.” It sounds like he’s talking about waiting for a bus, doesn’t it? As far as adjectives go, “long and boring” is about as un-sexy as it gets. But I think he’s right. Too often, we confuse love with passion. But the times that I’ve felt most loved are not necessarily full of passion. Honestly, they’re pretty mundane and routine. But usually it involves someone in my life moving towards me in a time when I didn’t deserve it or didn’t appreciate it. I treasure these memories, and most of them are, frankly, quite boring. They revealed a love that was willing to endure me at less than my best.

This is exactly the kind of love we see God exhibiting towards his people in the Bible. We see it in the person of Jesus Christ, born in humiliating circumstances and suffering servant of all. Jesus does not endure the life He endured because he felt like it. He did so because God had made a covenant with his people, and He bound Himself to his word. “Feeling” had little to do with it, and his death was the single greatest act of love the world has ever seen. That’s because Jesus knew something about love that we often forget: love is not cheap. Anything that says otherwise is a lie. Love is more than just a concern for another’s good. It’s a commitment to endure, even in times when we’d rather not.

It’s easy for us to follow the path of least resistance when it comes to relationships. It’s less work. We don’t much care for long or boring if we can help it; the easier and more convenient, the better. But that is not how God defines love. When we look at Scripture, we find a God who demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. His love was characterized primarily by patience and long-suffering. He was committed to his people. That’s what covenant means: a binding agreement to never give up. Just as the Father comes running to his prodigal son when he comes wandering home, so does our Father run to meet us when we come to Him. If we’re going to call ourselves Christians, we need to love people like that.

So as we gear up for yet another holiday season, let us be the kind of people willing to love others in small ways, boring ways, ways that test our patience and drive us nuts. Let us make our neighborhoods and our cities marvel at our unrelenting commitment to never give up on them. Because the book of love is long and boring. But I love it when my God reads it to me. And I love it when we read it together, for His glory and the good of all peoples.

The Joy of A Painful Journey

(By Thor Knutstad)

Proverbs 14:10 – Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share in its joy.

Empathy can sometimes be overrated.  When we feel understood by another person, our heart feels a connection – a safety of sorts.  They seem to be able to step back in time with us into the darkest and most painful moments of life.  Our hearts want to rest in the compassionate sympathy of someone else walking in our shoes.  At a simple glance, even the most seasoned theologian will read the above verse and want to hone in on the word “bitterness.”  The legalism of a moral stance is taken, and we wrongly assume that the wise poet is saying something about forgiveness or maybe resentment.  But that isn’t what he is saying at all.  The first part of the verse says something like this (as I can best translate in my biblical vernacular): “Every person’s journey is unique to him or her – only that person knows how they have suffered, been under tests and trials and hurt in pain through heart moments individually.”

This is not a stance against empathy.  Empathy comes from the one who has experienced something similar or who can, at minimum, feel what has been experienced.  But when I read the wisdom of Proverbs 14:10, I am reminded that my journey has this unique direction – it’s made just for me.  And it’s not just about pain and suffering; it’s also about my joy.  In other words, I am the only one who really gets the good things in my life – these things that absolutely elate my heart and bring happiness.  I don’t think that there is a distinction between the temporary and the eternal here, but it appears that the lean is on the earthly and the “earthy” of this present and pre-eternal life.  So whether in my pain or in my joy, only my heart has lived in that context and within all that history of moments both individually and accumulated.  Of course, our ever present God was and is there through all the moments and sees into my overall heart, but others really cannot – not my wife, not my husband, not my pastor, not my counselor and not even anyone in my family.

The reason a verse like this ought to prick our hearts is to remind us that though we think we see into the depths and the scope of another’s life, we cannot and we do not.  When we wrongly do this or some variance thereof, we border on being a Pharisee.  Our counsel is full of shoulds, woulds, oughts and ought nots.  Our assumptions judge the moments and another’s varied responses and reactions.  We label reaping and sowing and consequence without marrying this to God’s grace and mercy – which only He can ever do in His magnificent combination of omniscience and sovereignty.  I think maybe I can say that our God knows His own pain of weep and magnanimous joy simultaneously.  The best illustration of this is in our Lord Jesus, where the cross merges in all of history.  It’s a bitter moment to watch Your Son be beaten, be mocked, be condemned and be crucified – sad, painful and fearful.  But it is joy knowing that Your wrath (God’s) over sin is fully satisfied by the cross and that sin is paid for – fully.  Joy.  And the resurrection awaits.  God’s joy, eternal fellowship and bliss await.  The pivotal moment of the cross forever changes history because it merges perfectly both suffering and joy.  God gets it.  He lives it as a Father, and He lives it as a Son.  He lives it as the Spirit who permeates our lives and walks each step in us and with us.  In this we can rest.  In all the bitterness there is joy.  And an even greater joy awaits us still yet.  Praise Him.

An Old Phrase or A Misinterpreted Truth

(By Diego Cuartas)

Recently someone asked me what my thoughts were concerning a common phrase we often use in our Christian circles. The phrase: “God will not give you more than what you can bear”. This is not exactly what the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians more than 2,000 years ago, but the phrase is rooted in the first letter he wrote to them. Paul said: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (10:13, NAS).

If I were to go by human experience, I would have to emphatically say that God does allow me to experience realities that honestly go beyond myself. I have often found those realities unmanageable or out of my control for the most part. And so in that sense they are more than what I can bear or handle. So, this common phrase is one that deserves careful thought or it has the risk of having the same misunderstood popularity as the phrase “God helps those who help themselves”--if it hasn't already. My hope is that you would be inspired to do diligent study of the truth expressed through the Apostle Paul and arrive to more concise, biblical conclusions rather than be left to lean on a common phrase that may represent a misinterpreted truth. Can I give you another motivator? The truth Paul is expressing in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is one we need to apply to our lives as a sail is to a boat on a daily basis. It is a truth that can set the direction of your heart as you face testing or temptation.

First observation: the word used in the beginning of verse 13, peirasmos, denotes testing or temptation.  What Paul has in mind is not only temptation but different testing we experience in life. The testing or temptation is described as what is “common to man,” so in this sense it would not be appropriate to believe that what we may be facing is somehow the result of being singled out by God—others are experiencing similar testing or temptation.

Second observation: this truth is given to us in the context of a warning against testing Christ through our responses to testing or temptation. Through the example of how Israel, the people of God, tested him, we are warned about not doing the same thing. The warning is followed by an exhortation to examine ourselves regarding how we stand before our present difficulties. Paul desires for us to hold on to the fact that God will be faithful to help us in our time of need. Though testing and temptation are common to man, your experience or suffering in it is not generic, it requires specific grace only God can offer to you.

Third observation: there is an illustration elsewhere from Paul's life that shows that we are indeed tested or tempted, at times, beyond our abilities. In 2 Corinthians 1:8 Paul reported: “we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.” Notice that Paul very clearly states that the pressures he and others were facing were “far beyond [their] ability to endure” and that experience led them to despair.

My conclusion, contrary to the old phrase or misinterpreted truth, is that this verse is not saying that you will only experience testing or temptation within your abilities to handle. Ready for the encouraging news? I believe what this verse is saying is that the reason you will not be tested or tempted beyond your abilities is because God promises to provide you with the way to escape or the grace to be able to bear patiently what you are facing. And somewhere in between, as John Calvin believed, God “sets limits to the temptation” (Calvin's Commentary on the Bible, studylight.org).  What is happening here is that the emphasis is on God's grace made available to you, not how much you are able to bear.

Friend, at times you will, like Paul, celebrate the fact that you have been rescued from difficult times or given the way out to escape as it was reported in 2 Timothy 3:10-11. At other times, like in the case of slaves who believed in Christ, the Apostle Peter would encourage them and commend them because they were bearing up “under the pain of unjust suffering because they [were] conscious of God” (1 Peter 2:19). The point is whether you are being rescued or given the help to endure, God will be faithful to you in your situation.

A few further truths/questions to meditate on...

You will be tested.(2 Timothy 3:12)
You will learn to decrease as you trust in God in the midst of tests and temptations. (2 Corinthians 1:9)
God will deliver, you can hope in Him. (2 Corinthians 1:10)
Sowing through prayer you and others will reap a harvest of thanksgiving. (2 Corinthians 1:11)

In what ways are you being stretch beyond your abilities?
How is God helping you escape testing/temptation in your life?
How is God helping you endure testing/temptation in your life?

Christmas is coming…my tree is getting fat?

Sarah Howard

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very year, I run into the fact that I’m not content with my Christmas tree decorations. I don’t really care for the color red. It’s probably my least favorite color. But somehow, the majority of the ornaments on our tree have ended up being…red. So every year, I daydream about my ideal tree, and I kind of sneer at our current decorations. As weird as it sounds, I feel this…drive to have this ideal tree that I picture in my mind. It feels like I’ll be more happy, more content, when my tree is decorated the way I want it to be.

    This year, I was flipping through a magazine and I saw a picture of a wreath. Instantaneously, I knew that I had found my muse for our tree. It was the exact style of what I’ve wanted and I knew I could easily reproduce the same decorations on the larger scale of a Christmas tree. Again, as strange as it sounds, I was seriously excited about this new decorating scheme. I was ready to trash all of our existing stuff and hit up Target right away.

    Right in the middle of my thoughts and plans for our tree, though, God showed up. He dropped a random thought into my mind that I would have never expected at that moment. He said to me, “In the United States, we’ve moved from the defining characteristic of our possessions being functionality, to the defining characteristic being beauty. Because of the wealth that Americans experience, that you simply have a possession is no longer enough. Now if you already have it, but that possession isn’t necessarily perfect to you, it seems ok to replace it for the sake of beauty.”

    Honestly, that thought shocked me. It made me realize that I can so easily be literally wrapped up in thoughts about how to perfect my possessions…but God might have a better way, a better story. 

    Now, I’m certainly not trying to imply that our things and our homes, including our Christmas trees, should NOT be beautiful. In fact, if you look at creation, God made things to be both functional AND beautiful. However, I think there’s more to my Christmas tree example than just a creative expression that reflects God. 

    What I think God was gently saying to me, was, that I, like many Americans, am a subconscious slave to materialism and consumerism. Somewhere along the line, because we are a rich enough society to already HAVE things (like tree decorations), the main focus of our possessions is no longer necessity or functionality; beauty has become the main ‘need.’ We’re no longer content with just having possessions…they have to be perfect, ideal, exactly in style, exactly what we like. 

    ‘So what’s wrong with that?’ you might ask. Well, here are my initial thoughts as I think through the lens of my current tree situation. 

1. If my thoughts about decorating my tree this year are all wrapped up in getting new decorations and decorating my tree perfectly, I’m probably valuing the beauty of my tree. There might be other values that, if I were more settled about my tree, I could focus my energy on: like my family. Like the incarnation. Like my neighbors. 
2. Consumerism and materialism say that I have to keep buying MORE, accumulate MORE, and have nicer, better, prettier things. I just don’t think that that’s what Jesus would say. I think He’d value being content, settled, and restful. I think He’d want me to know that my value is never determined by my Christmas tree or by my ability to decorate it well.
3. And lastly, God says many times in the Bible that He has a huge concern for the poor. He calls people that love Him to partner with Him in caring for the poor. I think He would want to adopt His value system in every area of my life, even Christmas trees. I think He’d want me to wrestle through how His values could be worked out practically in my life, in the middle of the United States.

Honestly, those 3 thoughts don’t sound too pleasant to me. They sound like a lot of work to think through. And it’s pretty ingrained in me that my possessions will save me: they’ll make me safe, they’ll make me significant, they’ll give me ‘the good life.’ But last weekend, at the Parent Summit, Pastor Nate said something that has stuck with me the past few days: “We’re driven to get the ‘Good Life’ (i.e. clothes, food…tree decorations). We don’t believe that Jesus is good. But as we meditate on the Gospel, we say I think His story is better than mine, and I let go of my false view of salvation and I’m freed of my story. I can then follow God’s leadership and what He puts on my heart.”

As I let go of the story to which I’ve clung so tightly, that beautiful possessions will save me, God has room to bring a better story into my life: a story about a Person saving me. A Person making me safe. A Person making me significant. And that Person is Jesus. 

So…I’d love to hear some feedback. Most people would say I’m crazy and legalistic to say that God wants to touch on the area of my Christmas tree. What do you think? Are there areas that God is challenging you to adopt His story for your life instead of your own?

Weighed Down!

(By Tammy Vaughn) 

Lately I have been learning a lot about the process of losing weight.  I started this journey in February 2013.  My current diet is mostly based on Dr. Fuhrman’s “Eat To Live” plan.  It is a way of eating that has totally changed my life.  It has been eight months now, and I have lost 62 pounds.  What once seemed impossible is now happening little by little.  How did this radical change all start?  It started with me feeling hopeless and helpless.

My father passed away in November 2011 from a very rare and aggressive cancer called Sarcamatoid Carcinoma.  The medical personnel kept saying that they could not get the proper read on certain medical tests because of his large habitus.  “Large habitus?”  It dawned on me that they were referencing his overweight body.  The words “large habitus” would ring in my ears.  Was it not awful enough that he had rare and aggressive cancer and was dying?  Did they have to keep referring to his 350 pound body as a “large habitus?”  This made me angry for a couple reasons, but mostly because it made me wonder what future medical treatments would be difficult for me since I also had a “large habitus”.  Two weeks after my father’s diagnosis, my family had to make the difficult decision to take my father off of life support. Now let me say, I know that my father is with Jesus, so I rest and take comfort in that.

The next life event that made me focus on my weight was a knee surgery that I had in June 2012.  My knee just never quite healed, and in the process of treatment, my doctor told me I would eventually need double knee replacements.  I had just turned 40 years old.  One of the main contributing factors to the decline in my knees was due to my “large habitus.”  The key to putting off knee replacement surgery was to lose weight.

I was frustrated, embarrassed and in pain.  It was sobering to think I would need surgery due to beating my knees down daily with my weight.  Finally it was all catching up to me.  The pain was so bad in my knee that I just thought to myself on several occasions, “I am going to have to live my life in a wheelchair or scooter.”  I was getting comfortable, coming to a resolve that this was how it was going to be.  I want you to understand how hopeless I felt.  I was going to give up!  After all, I had been on every diet you could imagine, including an all liquid diet for weeks.  Nothing worked, and now I was looking at major surgery if I did not lose weight.  Now a scooter or mobilized wheelchair is fine IF this is what is genuinely needed.  For me however, I would end up in the power chair because I was overweight and did nothing about it.  I would be choosing to live in defeat.

In talking to a close friend about this, I told her that, “I want to know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in this area of my life.”  To me this was a way to say, “Jesus, this area of my life is dead, hopeless, lifeless, stagnant, even sinful, but the resurrection power can bring what is dead back to life.”  Paul said, “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10).

I have experienced that power in other areas of my life, so I know Jesus gives us access to this power.  In fact, this is the reason He victoriously came and conquered death—so that I do not have to live defeated.  Yet I was choosing just that.  I knew in my head that Jesus has the power to heal and change people; I just did not believe it could happen for me, in this area of my life.  Oh me of little faith!  Here I had access all along to the power to change.  I just felt extremely hopeless and overwhelmed.  One large uphill battle!

While on a family vacation in January 2012, my brother came to me and told me about an eating plan he and my sister-in-law were going to follow.  He said he saw me struggling and wanting to lose weight.  He then offered to journey with me, not just to lose weight but also to get healthy.  He presented Dr. Fuhrman’s “Eat To Live” book and plan to me.  It was radical.  He told me I would have to radically change how you eat.  He said “I know you can know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in this area of your life.  You pray about it.”  I did not really need to pray about it; I had prayed the same prayer earlier that week- to know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.  Reluctant to start yet another “diet” only to fail, I told him I was in!

Well, fast forward eight months.  With the help of Jesus, good accountability, support from my family and friends and Dr. Fuhrman’s medical team in North Jersey, I have lost 62 pounds.  I have gone down five pant sizes and two shirt sizes.  Seems like a miracle to me some days; other days it’s not enough and I still have a long way to go.

I believe that Jesus will continue to help me lose weight.  It is not easy.  At times I want to give up.  But Jesus has helped give me the strength to resist temptation, to persist and be disciplined one meal at a time.  I have knowledge about food that I did not have before.  And knowledge is power.  I don’t see quitting as an option, although I want to some days.  I can really feel God doing something new in my body and in my mind.  I’m often encouraged by 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If any is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

I value the support of my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I also call out to my brother when I am struggling or feel I cannot eat one more salad.  God uses him to encourage me to get back on track.   I view my eating as an act of worship unto the Lord.  My body belongs to Him; it is His temple.  Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.  This is your spiritual act of worship.”  I cannot possibly do all God has called me to do while slowly destroying my body and eventually killing myself with food.  I was created for more than just drowning in my own fat!  Maybe this sounds extreme.  It is not extreme to me when I think about watching my father die in Cooper Hospital because he had tumors growing inside the fat of his abdomen that they could not see because of his “large habitus”.  It motivates me to keep going.

I am fully aware that it will not happen on my own strength alone.  I am so grateful for my wonderful loving Savior who loves me and cares about me and gave me a new sense of hope in this area of my life.  The praise is all due to Him!  I hope you feel encouraged to present the areas of your life where you feel hopeless and defeated to Jesus.  Pray and tell Him that you want to know the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in that area of your life.  That power is available to all of His Children.  I hope someone is shouting Amen somewhere! I know I am!

God Will

Nancy Vasquez

Sin is hopeless.

 As a kid going to Christian school and attending church, I heard enough sermons about sin to last me a lifetime. Don’t do this. Don’t say that. Don’t even think about it. Fix your attitude. Be better. Try harder. 

I left high school with a sense that I was pretty much a failure. God loved me in some vague way, Jesus died for my sins, but I could never seem to “get it together.” The bouts of depression and anxiety that were a part of my life for as long as I could remember never seemed to totally go away, no matter how hard I tried to improve my attitude or say or do the right things to make God happy.

I did what a lot of young people are doing. I left church altogether. I was bitter and defeated and didn’t belong among all the others who had their “perfect” Christian lives in order: Christian college, marriage, kids, career. Me? I was very successful in college and career, but I didn’t belong with all of those who had the answers, the keys to God’s approval, as I saw it. God’s grace covered me in a thousand ways during these “lost years,” but I didn’t see it until later. I only returned to church in my thirties when I came to the end of myself and knew I had no emotional reserves left.  It was a move of sheer desperation.

God has revealed Himself to me in tremendous ways over the past several years since that move. But when I realized the sermon last week was going to be on sin and atonement, I reflexively wanted to bolt out of fear. I felt like that confused and sad teenager all over again. 

My fears were challenged by the following passage from Ezekiel quoted during the sermon:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.  (Ezekiel 36:25-27 ESV)

Look at how many times the phrase “I will” is used in this passage. God is telling His people what HE WILL DO FOR US! He wants our repentance, but He is the one doing the heavy work of changing us. I don’t have to “get it together” alone and live in a cycle of trying harder and failing. HE WILL do the things He has promised for me.

It is human nature to try and do everything independently. Anyone who has spent time around toddlers can attest to the constant attitude of “I can do it myself!” Little kids want to do everything themselves even when they have a team of adults willing to help. We never really lose this desire for independence, and it wreaks havoc on our relationship with God and our understanding of the Gospel.

 We can’t do anything ourselves, but so often we latch on to the idea that we can. We do this even when we have Almighty God saying that HE WILL do tremendous things to us and for us. We get frustrated and give up even when the only resource we need has promised to do the work of changing our hearts.

Sin is hopeless. Our God is not. Jesus’ death and resurrection are proof of God’s ultimate power to change us.

Where is your hope today? What will God do for you today to change you?