"Making New"

 "A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;" (Ecclesiastes 3:3 KJV)

  ""Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds. In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence. Oh, that we might know him! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring."" (Hosea 6:1-3 NLT)

 There are times when our will, will not be willing to change; that may or may not be mean you haven't yet truly been converted, because that is something totally and completely between you and God. But, in the instance that you are, you can take the fact that God is correcting your path, to be the proof that you most surely are His child! 

 There are three steps in Salvation, as many of you should know by now; the first of which is that we have been justified, which is the washing away of our sins, by the blood of Jesus Christ; this is called Justification, which means, "Just as if I never sinned"! Because we have been washed, we have fellowship with the Father; literally, we can enter into the Holy of Holies, to commune with God; just like the High Priest did in the Temple, we can enter in, making intersection for the ones we love, and pleading for ourselves! 

 The second step is more of a journey, because it takes you from the moment you became a child of God, to the very end of your dwelling here on earth. This is called Sanctification, which basically means God's will for you, as His child, to be holy and set apart, for Him! Oh, you will still have free-will, but sooner or later, your will, will be aligned with God's will, because that is His will for your life! 

 Just when you think you have gotten there, (as if you have overcome,) you find out you're not as strong as you thought you were, and you have to deal with it, or be dealt with; but you will be taken care of, one way or another! God does not abandon us or discard us, once we have become His children! If you truly are not saved, then you weren't truly saved to begin with; there was some other reason that you decided to follow Jesus, other than to be saved from sin! 

 That said, because you might still have an issue with sin, does not mean your sin makes you unsaved, because we all sin! Anyone that says that they no longer sin, they are sinning by saying that they never sin, because they are calling God a liar! (1 John 1:8-10) Simply put, as long as we are here, we will sin, in some way or another; but God will complete in you, what He has started...

"After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, "My child, don't make light of the LORD'S discipline, and don't give up when he corrects you. For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child." As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all." (Hebrews 12:4-8 NLT)