RedeemedSample

"Sanctification: our hearts are disordered. God’s grace leads us to conviction and repentance" By grace, we are saved when we give our hearts to Jesus. And by that same grace, the Holy Spirit who lives in us transforms our hearts until our lives bear the sweet fruit of redemption. Redeemed hearts become redeemed relationships. Redeemed minds become redeemed homes, churches, neighborhoods, and schools. Redeemed vision becomes redeemed purpose, mission, and calling. We struggle with sin because we have disordered hearts. We have made the lesser things the main things. We have put something we love before the God we should love supremely. Our priorities are out of whack. When our loves are out of order, the Bible calls it idolatry. Whatever we love more than God becomes the focus of our worship, and therefore, it has become an idol. We all have idols of some sort. When our loves becomes disordered, we worship whatever we love more than God. We so often worship the created instead of the Creator. God is committed to reclaiming our hearts and remaking us into the image of Christ. There is a war going on for the hearts of believers, and God will fight for our affections. He wants the whole heart—all of us, without distraction, sin, or idols. Growing in spiritual maturity means removing anything that has become an idol and reaffirming our desire to love God first. The problem is that most of us aren’t very good at being self-aware. We’d rather not look. But you do not have to be afraid to take a good look at your heart. Do you remember that you belong to Christ? Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God. His plans are for our good, and our greatest good comes when God is our greatest love. To become aware of our sin and our idols is a good thing. We cannot change what we will not acknowledge. We must see our own sin, or we will not grow. We might be saved for eternal life, but God wants even more. He wants to redeem this present life. Here’s the very best news: We are saved by grace, held by grace, and forgiven by grace. There is grace when God’s light shines into our darkness. There is grace to help us name our idols. There is grace to confront our sin. And there will be grace to help us be redeemed. All is grace with God.