Restored Back to Holiness Written I am not really one to create new year’s resolutions however I do believe it’s important for us to continually assess our hearts and minds. For a lot of us, the new year marks a new beginning. So, it’s a good time to do this assessment and renew our minds. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us to renew our minds daily (Romans 12:2). So, if I’m going to make a resolution this year, it is to renew my mind daily in the word of God. I am trusting God for restoration in my life. I am praying that He would restore me where I have fallen short in all the areas of my life. I am asking Him to change me to make me more like Him and that I may live with a pure heart and clean hands. I do believe that as followers of Jesus we need to ask ourselves if we are living HOLY lives. We need to assess our hearts and minds and where there is sin, we need to repent and ask God to fix us… to restore us to HOLINESS. Assessing Your Mind What do you think about as 09
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M e a g a n Tay l o r
you go about your day? Every moment of every day you and I have the freedom to think about whatever we want. Our minds may fill with worries, gossip, or fear. Our thoughts may cultivate anger, lust, compulsive working, people-pleasing, or depression. Or we can “be transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:1) in God’s Word, letting it diagnose us (Hebrews 4:12), wash us (Ephesians 5:26), and give us life (Genesis 1, Matthew 4:4). Truly, the thoughts you choose to dwell on become the most important factors in how you feel and what you say and do. Ultimately, your thinking determines the kind of person you become. The Proverb is true: As a person thinks in his heart that’s who he or she becomes (Proverbs 23:7, paraphrase). Renewal Through the Word We then need to declare scripture into our lives. Romans 8:1 says that “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
