January 2010
(Note: Pastor's Pen is published on a monthly basis)
2010 A Fresh Start Begins
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29, KJV)
There is a story that is told that one day someone was watching the great master Michelangelo, at work after he had carved the David, whose marble cocoon lay for years unused because of a great fault. Leonardo himself had rejected the stone as impossibly difficult—almost worthless. Anyway, the story is that Michelangelo was asked how he could look at a block of stone and get out from it such a wondrous thing as the David, the Pieta. The master shrugged his shoulders and said, “it’s easy; I just knock off what doesn’t look like David.”
The Apostle Paul writes of God determining to make us look like Christ. He said we are to conform to the image of His Son. That is what should be happening to us daily: To become as loving, giving, wise, forgiving and self-sacrificing as Christ.
For God to make man look like Christ is much more difficult than for Michelangelo to form marble into a beautiful man. For human transformations, it takes the whole of a life and is very painful at times. As the song states, “I Surrender all,” is the secret to taking on the image of Christ. Pray that God will knock everything off us that doesn’t look like His Son, that we may conform to His image. The New Year is always a wonderful time to put the past behind, renew a right spirit within us, live in the present and look to the future. God bless you as we set our course together for a greater vision for souls to be won, hearts to be mended and lives restored in the New Year. May you and your family be blessed!
Love and prayers,
~ Pastor Roberts
Copyright © 2010 Northwest Tampa Church of God