Renewed Motherhood

Do you find yourself fluctuating with the ups and downs of your performance? God grounds his people with a new identity rooted in his unconditional love. Zephaniah declares, “God rejoices over you with gladness. He quiets you with his love. He exults over you with loud singing.”

Habakkuk was able to possess joy and strength in his hard circumstances because he found hope in God. We too have hope for a restored world through Christ! Both hardship and flourishing can serve to deepen this hope and empower us to live faithfully.

The book of Nahum highlights God’s judgment on sin, and while this might not be a popular topic, God’s grace will never be precious to us until we grasp this reality. God’s justice, satisfied on the cross, moves us to gratitude and worship.

The prophet Micah confronts the Israelites for their empty religion: claiming to love God but living without love or morality. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)” When Jesus came to Earth, he perfectly embodied justice, kindness and humility. Because we are united to Jesus, we have the power to live likewise.

Jonah’s story leads us to examine our hearts towards those who have hurt us. While we are inclined to hold onto bitterness, the cross of Christ gives us the power to show mercy and live in freedom.

Do you want to be free from the need to prove yourself? In the book of Obadiah, God delivers a message of judgment upon Israel’s rival, the nation of Edom, for their pride and arrogance. Naturally, we are like Edom, insecure and striving for significance. But God’s love and exaltation in Christ gives us an unshakeable confidence: we have nothing left to prove!

In Jesus’s love for us, we receive the compulsion and power to love others radically! Just as God called Israel to be a community of love, so God now calls Christians to love as Jesus loved them! A lack of care and compassion reveals a lack of comprehension of what we’ve received in Christ.

Our root problem is not our behavior but our desires: sin happens when we desire things like success, approval or comfort over God. In Joel, we explore God’s promise to pour out his Spirit upon his people, a reality set in motion by the death and resurrection of Jesus! The Holy Spirit fans the flame of our desire for God, empowering us to turn from sin and experience renewal!

Is your life centered on God’s heart of love for you? It’s only in knowing God’s love that we then begin to change and love in response! The book of Hosea gloriously displays the unconditional love of God with the imagery of an unfaithful wife and her loving husband, moving us to respond to God with our faithfulness.

In Daniel, God’s people were able to live fearlessly because they knew God was stronger than the opposition! In our suffering, we too can persevere because our hope is in God’s victory and his presence with us.

Isn’t it baffling how often we choose to struggle alone when God is right there with us? When we’re aware of God’s presence with us, we inevitably move forward in the right direction. Ezekiel encourages us to look to the life-giving presence of God in our uncertainty and anxiety.

Do your sin and struggles ever restrain you from going to God? The wonderfully surprising message of Lamentations is that God’s deepest heart, what he actually delights to do, is to show compassion to his people. God does not begrudgingly forgive; rather, his love flows forth all the more in our sin.

Is belonging to God the core of who you are? Or are you defining yourself by the approval of others? The things you achieve? The good things you do? What God wants is for you to rest secure in the truth of Jeremiah 31: “I am yours and you are mine.” He is inviting you to live out of your identity as his loved child.

Have you ever thought about the reality that chasing after something we believe will make us happy is a form of worship? While the worship of things like money, influence or pleasure unravels us, God rebuilds us and brings us abundant life! Isaiah urges us to see God’s love and restorative power and so respond with our worship!

How are we to view sex in a culture that treats it so lightly? God wants his people to treasure sexual intimacy within the bounds of marriage, both to enjoy it in the best way and to honor its design. Marriage reflects the type of relationship Jesus has with his people, so both our enjoyment and disappointment in our romantic lives can serve to draw us closer to God.

Life is often hard and unexplainable, but those who hope in God are able to find contentment in any circumstance! A life framed by eternal hope means abundant living in the present.

We all want to live wisely in life, but do you ever get overwhelmed with how many different perspectives are out there? Proverbs offers a simple solution: if you want wisdom, fear God! To fear God means to trust that he knows best and that he instructs you out of love.

Through prayer, the Psalms teach us to bring our emotions to God and allow his Word to shed light on them. Rather than suppressing our feelings or being blindly controlled by them, we learn to ground our feelings and experiences in Christ and go deeper into his peace.

When hard things happen to you, do you question God’s love? Job didn’t understand the reason for his suffering, but he learned to trust God when he saw God’s power and control over all things. The cross shows us that there is love behind God’s sovereignty: Jesus suffered pain for you so that you could bring your pain to him.

Is God leading you to step up and take action? Esther took a leap of faith to save her people by trusting in God’s sovereignty. You also can live boldly and faithfully when you live in light of God’s ultimate power and control.

In Ezra & Nehemiah, the Israelites gave into discouragement over the community and city they were working to rebuild, so God said he would fulfill the role of restoring his people and world. In the same way, when you feel discouraged, know that God is at work in your work! God is using your efforts and redeeming them. He’s weaving them together in his plan, in ways you can’t even see or comprehend...

In their times of doubt, the Israelites recounted stories of God’s faithfulness to them. When you question God and his love for you, you can do the same. Reflect on God’s past faithfulness, his love and forgiveness demonstrated on the cross, to maintain hope for it to continue.

Do you ever look up and wonder, “How did I get so far down this bad path?” In 1 & 2 Kings, the Israelites ignored God’s warnings and persisted in their sin. This eventually led to God’s judgment. Likewise, our sin deserves judgment, but Jesus took that on when he died on the cross! Because of Jesus, we can have the freedom and confidence to bring our struggles and failures into the light before Go...

Do you want to be used by God? Because David submitted to God as his King, God empowered him to lead well as Israel’s king. What God wants from you is not perfection but a heart that seeks his will and his power to walk in it.

“Where is God in the messy, broken parts of my life?” Out of brokenness and tragedy, God redeemed Ruth and gave her a new life, weaving her story into his cosmic plan of redemption. Her story reminds us that our setbacks are not dead-end streets! Christ has for us a beautiful, eternal future, where one day all will be made right, and all our experiences will be redeemed to display the glory of God...