There is a huge difference between Gospel-less self-improvement and Gospel-rich introspection. The discipline of introspection includes a Scripture-informed, Search-me-O-God that listens to the Spirit’s work to expose blind spots and needed places of sanctification.

Whatever you’re feeling today, a watchful spirit and prayerful heart is your way forward. And you can move forward today because the sorrowful soul of Jesus didn’t keep Him from submission to the will of God, and His death dealt the death blow to death itself!

But we must never forget where our allegiance lies. We belong to a kingdom yet to reign on this earth, for “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20) 

Let us not be distracted by the divisive world around us but speak with peaceable wisdom as we point people to the only answer the Bible ever gives – The saving work of Jesus!

What motivates Christian living then? What should fill my heart and drive my doing? The simple answer – Faith. We believe that moment by moment Jesus is enough, Jesus satisfies, Jesus loves me, and all other things are anti-gods vying for my heart affections that must be resisted or put in their proper place.

Are we called to Abide or called to Action? How do we listen to Jesus instructing us to Come Rest in Him (Matthew 11:28) while the Apostle Paul tells us to Redeem the Time (Ephesians 5:16)?

“Be on guard; I have told you all things beforehand.” (Mark 13:23) The King has told us the future, now we must live like it! 

Read with fresh eyes and awe-filled wonder this year the One Story that makes sense of all of history, and offers you daily hope for whatever comes your way.

As you stir your thoughts up in wonder, that wonder births awe in your heart, gratitude in your prayers, and praise in your days. You have a choice to make – Be controlled by the circumstances around you or choose to praise the Sovereign God of the Universe who controls all things and has given you all things richly to enjoy. 

As you take inventory this week, and set some goals for the New Year, please consider how you can be more invested in spiritual community where you give and receive the kind of Biblical counsel that builds up the body. What do you need to plan? Who do you need to pursue? May 2026 be a year of significant spiritual growth, for you and for Redeemer.

As Edwards writes, this complete change of heart “consists in setting God highest in the heart, in choosing him before other things, in having a heart to sell all for Christ.” Nothing short of this is genuine saving faith.

I love this ministry model and trajectory, believing the public proclamation of the Word ought to fuel the private conversations within the body, leading to spiritual understanding, delightful affections, and courageous obedience. May Redeemer Church be the Dry Drayton of our day! 

For Baxter this fit what He believed God called pastors to be as they lovingly shepherd the flock of God. “Every time we look upon our congregations, let us believingly remember that they are the purchase of Christ’s blood, and therefore should be regarded by us with the deepest interest and the most tender affection.”

Watson exhorts us that, “Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” With one hand, we must let go of the sin that sticks so closely to us, as we grab the gentle and firm hand of the Savior with the other. Devotion to Christ becomes sweeter and deeper as sin becomes duller to our heart.

The Church should always show compassion and demonstrate benevolence, but the government was never meant to be a support for the selfish living of citizens who have something to offer their neighbors.

The Church should care about people fleeing to the United States for protection, freedom, and justice. There must be firm policies and laws that protect its own citizens as a central priority, while demonstrating compassion over comfort, and operating in faith rather than fear.

“No political system or government is ever really complete this side of eternity.” (Beckwith, pg. 34)

However, the Gospel rooted in the hearts of Jesus-followers will have a social effect. Where Christians are operating as good citizens, people will be cared for as their spiritual need is exposed. 

We must be very careful to not separate standing up for orthodoxy within the Church and standing up for morality within the culture. It is not our aim to create a Christian government. But it is our mandate, as Paul exhorts Titus in shepherding the church under his care, to “be careful to devote themselves to good works.

For a Christian who is called to obey the authorities God has put us under, we are faced with a conflicting set of obligations. Obeying God will mean coming under the authority of laws justly created by the ruling government, except where obeying the government would mean directly disobeying God.