ARISE | Restoration | January & February 2021

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God’s Commitment to Reconciling Us To Himself Writ ten “ To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen” - Jude 1:24-25.

by

Yo l a n d a M a g i d a

There are many things that I love about God. Even the things I do not like, I love. Or at least I have grown to appreciate these things as I mature in Christ. His multifaceted nature never ceases to amaze and leave me in wonder! One of the things that I loved discovering and never quite left my mind last year was God’s commitment to restoring us and bringing us closer to Himself. He has created us for Himself. He is preparing us for Himself. We have been created to delight and take pleasure in Him.

that we will not repent and believe unless God does His work to overcome our hard and rebellious hearts. Regeneration is the natural process of replacing or restoring damaged or missing cells, tissues, organs, and even entire body parts to full function. The organ that God mostly focuses on is the heart, because out of the heart flows the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). What I found to be so exciting and comforting is that with Jesus being the healer and with God’s intimate knowledge and experience with the human heart, anyone and everyone has a good chance of having their hard and rebellious hearts restored. This, to me, is one of many things that make God so great and His otherness incomparable. I mean… who does that! Who goes around pursuing people whose hearts have turned against them?

In his book ‘Desiring God’ (2019), John Piper calls this relentless pursuit from God and “divine work”, regeneration. He says

Again, in his book, John Piper explains this mystery by saying that we need to first experience the regeneration work of the

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