I'm working through the Beth Moore Bible Study, Believing God. It is just right for many reasons and recently I learned something that I will never forget. I don't have the workbook with me so if you want to know the details you'll have to do your own research but here's what I do know. Thank you Beth!

When God spoke the world into existence the Hebrew word for "created" means "from nothing". We might say nothing existed before He created it. He spoke the world into being. However when the Bible says that God created Adam and Eve there is a different Hebrew word used. He "created" them from existing matter, from the dust of the earth. I like to think that God was willing to get His hands dirty in creating us. There is something meaningful to me that God shaped us with His hands and then blew His breath in us so we could have a living soul. So it is no surprise that when we die our body, made of the earth, stays here. While our soul, made from that which is eternal, lives forever. 

Here is where it gets good, when God says he creates in us a clean heart, the scriptures use the word for--guess which one--from scratch. Isn't that great? He doesn't use the recycled material of a heart gone wrong. He starts fresh. He creates a new heart from nothing! So when you are forgiven you are not just made new as in renewed--your heart is brand new--as in never soiled! That really encourages me. It makes me appreciate grace and God who gives it more than ever. I hope it does you too!