Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you! I pray that each of you are having a great start to 2009. I can hardly believe how time flies. I remember Y2K and thinking that everything was going to shut down when 2000 hit and now we are in 2009. I am not big on resolutions but I do love a new start. I have messed up so many things in my life that the thought of a new start is precious to me.
I love that about our God. That He is the God of new beginnings. That God doesn't see us for what we were but what we are becoming. I love that when He sees us, He sees us as "blameless in the day of the Lord."( I Cor. 1:8)

I looked up blameless in my new logos bible software (my Merry Christmas present) and it is defined as "freedom from fault; innocency" Only Jesus Christ can give us this blamelessness. What he did on the cross is the sole reason we are free from fault. I loved the word "innocency" I lost my innocence a long time ago. We all did but only by His blood can we be seen by the God of the universe as innocent. How cool is that?. If any of you struggle with guilt and shame, here is what we need to latch onto. Through Jesus we have been made new - innocent. Pure!

When I was studying Hosea over the summer, I learned the coolest thing about God and His restoration. God is talking about how He will restore Israel after her unfaithfulness. There are so many things that God does for us but in chapter 2 of verse 19 and 20 He says, “I will ​betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in ​​righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will ​​know the Lord."
(These are my favorite verses right now and ones I am currently working on memorizing for those of you are joining the Beth Moore memory verse challenge on her blog - http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com)

One of my favorite parts is when He says and "then you will know the Lord."

John Piper says this about the word, "In the context of a broken marriage being renewed with the fresh vows of betrothal, must not the words, "and you shall know the Lord" (v. 20), mean, you shall enjoy an intimacy like that of the purest sexual intercourse. When the wife of harlotry returns to her husband, he will withhold nothing. He will not keep her at a distance. The fellowship and communion and profoundest union he will give to his prodigal wife when she comes home broken and empty."

Can I get an amen to that? "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."