I have a nearly two year old grandson named Landon. It is pure joy to keep him at Papa's and Nana's most Fridays. I actually regularly take my day off now! Recently he's taught me new insight about the gospel--the Good News of Jesus. He likes to stand in front of our curio cabinet and look at himself in the mirror. He sways a little to the right and then the left and says, "I cute!" Where do you think he's heard that before? I love it that he knows the truth. He is loved and highly prized and he may not know this yet not just by me but by God. And God wants all of His children to know we are so highly valued that He sent His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for us. In that act He made a way to pay for the sin of the world. You are so cute to Him that He offers to forgive you and redeem your life. You can trust Him. He loves you. Landon has another saying I've picked up on. When he eats he likes to wear his food. It will be in his hair, on his cheeks and up his arms. He looks at himself and then at us and says, "I'm a mess!" it is quite a sight. I smile and laugh at his wit and his transparency. Isn't it great that he can hold two truths in his head at the same time. He is cute and He is a mess? The other part of the Gospel is that the grace that comes from the cross to save us is strong enough to keep us. Yes we are a mess on a daily basis but once we accept the grace of God He relates to us in a whole new way. He invites us into a relationship not based on our actions but on His grace and love for us. It is not about what we can do for Him but about the relationship. I'm learning so much from hanging around my grandson these days. My love for him grows by the hour and it reminds me of how God loves us.

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!