Seasons Change pt.2

So how do we embrace this season of change?

1) We have to look at ourselves in a different way and acknowledge that we are not so far from God that we can’t be reached.A lot of people may look at you and privately judge you for what you have allowed in your life, and they may say to you “you’re never gonna make it, you will never amount to anything” but this does not have to be your story. You can shift your mind into the right gear and know there’s something more, that Jesus is on the scene.Read Romans 8 (The Message Version) and ponder on what it says to you.

Romans 8 The Message (MSG)

The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms

8 1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation.Thought: How many of you feel like you’ve been walking around with a black cloud hanging over you? I know I’ve felt like that and it’s hard to break from that “cloud but Romans 8:2 says: “The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

9-11 . But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.God always finishes what He started. If He has begun a good works in you, he’s going to see it through until the very end.

31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.Jesus is forever praying for you, forever going to the Father on your behalf.

Hebrews 7:24

24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely[c]those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.Romans 8:31-39 continues to say:Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture...None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.Jesus is constantly embracing us and He wants us to embrace this season of change. He wants to show us what we are really made of.Start building yourself up in this truth.

Speak positive over your life. Shift your mind out of the negative into a clean, healthy way of thinking.The battle is in the mind. If the enemy can keep your mind off the truth, that you are valuable and loved by God, then he knows he can torment the mind, having you believe a lie.But Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.And we are going to need this peace going forth. We are going to need to trust God in this season of change, knowing that he’s well able to keep you safe when the enemy tries to fight even harder for you to stay in his camp.Get in touch with yourself more in this season. Evaluate yourself and remove all things that you know in your heart that is not the very best for you.With the help of our Jesus, we can transition into this season of change and overcome whatever comes our way.We can change our minds to be healthier so that we can see the new us, the better version. Believe it, knowing God is able to change all things in your life.God’s not done with you. This is just the beginning!

I’ll see you next week for more of our new series “A Woman of Virtue, Becoming the Best You.