Do you sometimes struggle to overcome things in your life that you know God doesn't like? Do you feel like you're stuck in a kind of sin management program? At one time or another,  most Christians do. I sure have. This can rob us of our joy and we can begin to see ourselves as God's problems to be solved rather than His children to be loved. Take heart though...we're not God's project. He doesn't see us that way at all! Today, let's take a moment and allow God's Word to refresh us through Paul’s advice to the Philippines:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:6)

I like that, don't you? Another translation of this passage reads, "God is the one who began this good work in you and I am certain that He won't stop it before it is complete on the day that Jesus Christ returns." Isn't that great? What an encouragement! My good friend Rebecca Covert recently wrote in her blog: "If you could keep yourself saved after you're saved, then you could have saved yourself before you're saved. And if that's the case…then Jesus didn't need to die for us in the first place. We could have just saved ourselves to begin with." I like Rebecca’s thinking. You and I don't have the ability to save ourselves and we don't have the ability to keep ourselves saved, either...but Jesus does. Only Jesus has the power to save and keep us. Not only that, He has promised that He will do it.

Jesus isn't depending on our willpower; we're depending on Him. He says He won't stop until His work in us in complete...and that's very Good News!