January 5, 2023 - Good Morning! It's Thursday, January 5.
The Christmas holidays are over, but the biggest part of Texas winter is still to come. Texas winters are unpredictable. You're never sure what you're gonna get. It could be three months of mild weather, with no hard freezes, or it could include a week like we endured two winters ago, with ice and snow and temps in the single digits. You just never know about a Texas winter.
Texas summers, on the other hand, are entirely predictable. You can bet the farm that it's gonna be . . . HOT. The only question is how hot - how many triple digit days there will be. I grew up in Houston where it's not just hot during the summer, it's sticky! If you did any kind of work outside you came in drenched in sweat. And the first thing you'd want to do is to shed those dirty, grimy clothes, jump in the shower, and get clean! Well, here's where my scenario takes a turn. What if, after taking that cool, cleansing shower - you put back on those old dirty, grimy, sweaty clothes. Ridiculous, you say! No one would do something like that.
Well, God knows that, spiritually speaking, we are tempted to do just that. He offers us a cleansing from the stain of our sin. His grace gives us a refreshing new start. And, then, so often, we turn back and put on those dirty, old clothes. Clothes of envy and resentment and bitterness. Clothes of gossip and anger and shame. Ridiculous, right? But we have all been guilty of doing that very thing.
We find these words in Ephesians 4 - "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
Good words for a new year.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
