faith and family | january 2017
Vicki Rutledge
“Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3
Happy New Year! While we look forward to 2017, the Fruits of the Spirit flood my mind as prayers for myself, my children, and my relationship with God and others. We resolve to be faithful, gentle, kind, joyful and exercise self-control. As we start this season, we will also focus on goodness, love, perseverance, and patience (I will save that one for May). As I study these attributes, I deepen my understanding of the character of God. He is the perfect example of each of these characteristics and as we press into the full life God intends for us, we realize that we must study and learn from our creator. As image bearers of God, we seek first His wisdom and actions in order to discern how to proceed in our own life. 2 Peter talks about how through knowledge of God’s glory and goodness, we are given everything we need for a godly life. I think it only fitting that we start the year talking about goodness. Particularly, God’s goodness and how we share in God’s goodness through Jesus Christ. What a great encouragement to offer our families this January – the goodness of God follows us all of our days and knowledge of HIS goodness will guide us! We desire to do good and for our children to do and be good and instead of frantically creating rules and regulations to ensure their goodness, let’s lean into and study the goodness of God and pray that our children know and understand God’s goodness as that knowledge is the first step to the godly life intended for us!
Grace Brown, Faith and Family Coordinator