Our hope for transformation.

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Today is the 8th day of Christmas, but most of our attention is on the new year. It’s a time many of us hope for significant transformation in our lives that will last . . . this time. We may design a new schedule to incorporate new disciplines. We may set new rules or adopt a new mantra, setting up any outward structure to help us sustain new behaviors.

^“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”
Galatians 4:4-6 New International Version

The 8th day of Christmas on the liturgical calendar has traditionally been set apart to contemplate Mary the Mother of God. Mary, an ordinary human girl, favored by the Father and chosen to carry the God-man Jesus Who was fully God and fully human. She was the first of us to have Christ formed in her.

Because He came through her we are now set free from the weight of our own striving, the laws and regulations that could only bring about outward change at best. NOW we have Christ alive in us! His Spirit is transforming our hearts into Christ-likeness as we give ourselves over to Him in repentance and cry out, “Abba Father”!

The transformation that is offered through Christ is an inward one unlike the law we once lived under and the rules we set up for ourselves. So whether you incorporate new rules for yourself this year or not, rejoice! The Holy Spirit will continue to form Christ within you.

“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Romans 8:1-4 New International version

Text and photo copyright Jennifer Brukiewa