A new year and new beginnings! Many of us may have dreams to change
our lives.
"I want to improve my marriage",
or, "I am going to change this habit", or, "I
want to turn a new leaf."
Trying to effect deep personal change in our
own lives, especially moral and spiritual change, is like saying
to a dead branch, "Live!"
Change or transformation doesn't seem to come
easily, however hard we may try.
But then, again, is not self-reliance or relying
on self, a moral and spiritual problem? Do we really find the
answers and the strength for moral change in ourselves?
Our Creator instructs us to look up and outside
of ourselves and to rely on His grace and strength. He is the
Author of all beginnings.
The Bible begins with these ten words: "In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
God did not use anything to create the heavens
or the earth. Neither did the heavens and the earth come in
the same way a spider emits a web.
The universe is not a part of God. God, in
His power and freedom, simply said, "Let there be..."
and there was! He created everything through Christ, His powerful
Word. The earth and everything in it, though distinct from Him,
is yet dependent on Him.
What God made was very good. There was no sadness,
pain, or moral and ethical problems on earth in the beginning.
All that changed, however, when our first parents, Adam and
Eve, disobeyed God. They no longer depended or relied on God
but relied on their own sinful independent nature (sin). Because
they are our first parents, the entire human race cut itself
off from God.
Karmic debt is not our problem, but the entire
human race inherited equally the sin from Adam and Eve. Like
that dead branch, we are no longer connected.
The question is, "How can we be connected
to Him again?" In other words, how do dead branches become
alive?
God tells us the way. The very power through
Whom He created the world, that is Jesus Christ, is the very
same Power who is able to change us radically. Through faith
in Christ, the Vine, we become living branches. We must rely
on His strength, His power.
With Christ, there is hope for new beginnings!
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