40 Years Of Change

Mercy does a long term work.

"Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would." - Nehemiah 9:18-24 ESV

God took a nation of slaves with a slave mentality and made them conquerors.

"You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great." - Psalm 18:35 ESV

As we dwell on His mercy some thing is happening in us. We may say, 'Why haven't I changed?' but God has changed us with His mercy and that mercy is shaping our growth over time.

"And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." - Colossians 1:9-14 ESV

We have been taken out from under a power that oppressed and shaped growth be oppression and we have been placed into a kingdom where there is strengthening power. Paul prays that these people would have 'spiritual wisdom and understanding' and that understanding becomes a catalyst for transformation.

A catalyst remains unchanged in the chemical reaction. We had 'golden calf' understanding but in time that changes as God shows us over and over who He really Is.

Good teaching is invaluable. The Bible is an amazing gift.

"Then I said, 'Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.' " - Psalm 40:7-8 ESV

We see Jesus and the Spirit creates a capacity in us over time. We become reflections of the life we are beholding. It isn't imitation. It is transformation.

God make us patient people. Make us patient with ourselves and with others. Patient and diligent to meditate on the only person that transforms. Thank You God.

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