transformation

For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.
Psalm 100:5 AMP
http://bible.com/8/psa.100.5.AMP

Meditation has been sold as a mindless mantra, a zoning achieved by repeating over and over a word or sound that will open the soul to a higher level of knowledge or peace. This perception of meditation is a 180 from God’s definition found in Joshua 1:8. The term meditate is all about chewing and digesting like a cow chewing on her cud. Meditation is meant to transform and open your spirit to God’s wisdom and leading. As you read the Bible God speaks. When something pops out to you STOP! Mull it over. Think about what is being said. Ask God to explain it to you. Go back to it throughout the day. Ask God what He wants you to do with this information. Talk about it to the people you meet. Chew on it. Change.

I wrote this January 19, 2014. Now we’re nearing a year and a half since we began this very hard process of renovation. And we’ve been installing furniture now!!! The rooms have beds! The living room has sofas! The closets have shelves and poles to hang clothes! We have a new roof! And I am falling in love with this once abused and broken and disgusting house.

I must say this is a perfect example of how we were before God came to save us. He says we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we all do fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. But when God sent Jesus to cover our sins with His blood He, like HGTV, flipped us! He did a total makeover. Much more then, being now justified by His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For He has made Him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God In Christ.

That is just the beginning. Like the garbage removal and the hole filling and wall painting and floor renovating is just setting the stage for usefulness, accepting Jesus as your Savior is just the beginning. The Bible says we need to study to show ourselves approved unto God as workmen that don’t need to be ashamed but can rightly divide or correctly assess the word of truth. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says all Scripture is God breathed and is useful for doctrine, for reproof and correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be whole and complete, fully equipped and furnished for all good works. Can you see it? Can you see that we are God’s makeover? He say we are His house!

My husband and I have come a long way since we took on this house. I didn’t like it at first. I dreaded all the time I had to spend with it and sometimes I went away injured and exhausted. This is the stuff of relationships. They can be hard and painful. But God showed His love for us by dying for us even when we hated, or didn’t even have a clue about Him and were a hot mess. He took us on and promised that we would be AWESOME, ADORABLE, WISE, POWERFUL, BEAUTIFUL! We are all a work in progress but the more time we spend with the Master and submit to His scraping, and refining and prepping the sooner we will become ready for the furniture and that’s when we will begin to take on the character, attitudes, and wisdom of our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

janjoy52

I love seeing the befores and afters with HGTV’s renovations. They seem so quick and, ok it looks like hard work, but, how hard can it be? Well, now that I’m neck deep in renovating our thrashed rental I can tell you it is neck breaking, back breaking and heart breaking. Yes, I am being a drama queen. When I am weary my thoughts and mood turn to the dark side. But, I must say, through my scrapping, spackling, hole-filling I have had some awesome conversations with God. Starting with a conversation Jesus had with religious leader Nicodemas in his day. Jesus told Nic if he ever wanted to make it into God’ s kingdom he would have to be born again. His basic genetic code was not Kingdom friendly. He needed a rebirth. A makeover.