Last year did not go as planned. New obstacles and challenges were presented before us on a seemingly monthly, if not weekly basis. Forget growing, many of us were looking simply to survive. We usher in 2021 with a certain level of expectancy that it cannot get much worse and it must get better…. Right?!? Amid a storm, we have battened down the hatches and have sought to find ways to just make it through. However, what if, for those who are called by God, He was attempting to do a work in them all along? Paul tells us in Romans 8:28, God is at work in our lives for good. What is that good exactly? The ultimate good, transformation to make us look more like the image and likeness of his Son (Rom. 8:29). Sometimes this is a gentle work of the Spirit by revealing things to us, other times it’s placing us into the furnace to soften us and subsequently bringing a hammer in to do the shaping.

We hold our ultimate future with certainty, knowing that God will bring it unto completion (Rom. 8:30). If there is anything this past year has taught us, it is that we should hold our plans and expectations of the immediate a lot more loosely. While we cannot control our circumstances, we can control how we view and approach things.

The next four weeks we will be spending time in Romans 8 and 12, looking at four calls to action, four heart postures, four ways of living that God has invited his people to press into. While these have been evident in God’s people’s lives all along, it appears that these are four He is inviting us to reassess and commit to pursuing in 2021, regardless of what comes next.

This year God is inviting the people of Summit View to be led by the Spirit in all that they do. Live with an expectancy, longing for Jesus’ return. Love those in our lives, community, and church selflessly. To walk humbly, not dependent on our own strength, and treating others with the value and dignity they carry as image bearers of God.