Good Morning Gorgeous,

It’s a brand new day. A fresh new start. A new day to move in the direction that God is calling you to. He has good and fruitful plans for each of us. He has promised us a hope and a future.

He has entrusted us with His most precious creation. God is a God of redemption and restoration. He created humans in His very image. That is important to sit and soak in because it demonstrates our value and importance to God. He made us like Him just as a child born from you will resemble you and have your characteristics. We are the children of God and He formed and fashioned us to have likenesses comparable to Him.

After He made Adam and Eve, God entrusted them with everything. He gave them dominion over the animals and the plants. He gave them responsibilities to care for the garden and He entrusted Adam with charge of naming each animal.

Then sin changed everything. Trust was broken and Adam and Eve had to leave Eden. They had failed to steward what God had entrusted to them.

Yet, God in all His mercy already had a plan for redemption. He was already weaving Jesus into the plan to make things right again between God and His creation. Jesus was going to come and walk the earth fully God and fully human. He was going to experience temptation by the same enemy that tempted Adam and Eve. The enemy was going to use the exact same tactics in the wilderness with Jesus as he used in the garden with Eve. This time though, man would pass the test. This time Jesus is the one being tempted and He doesn’t succumb to sin. Yet, on behalf of all mankind, He later takes the sin of the whole world onto Himself and dies as our sacrificial lamb to cancel the curse of sin and death. That is important because it is the fulfillment of what God said to the serpent in Genesis 3.

That is the fulfillment of God’s redemption of His relationship with His people. But God has even MORE restoration! Not only did He provide for forgiveness and remission of sin, but AFTER forgiveness, comes restoration. And with restoration, there is a rebuilding of trust.

In the beginning God entrusted Adam and Eve with His most precious creation: the earth and everything in it.

And when Jesus came, thousands of years later, He made a way for forgiveness and relationship with God again. And then He went even further! He gave us a 2nd chance at being entrusted with His most prized possession yet again. This time, He entrusted us with His church. With the charge to go and make disciples of all men spreading the love and word of Jesus. He trusts us to carry forth His mission which is to demonstrate His love in the earth. To follow Him fully by allowing our minds to be renewed by Christ so that we live empowered and enabled to walk like Him, talk like Him, love like Him, and even think from the perspective of heaven so that we are walking and talking sons of God who resemble our father in Heaven who designed us in His likeness.

And when we walk and love like Jesus, it is attracting. People see our joy and our peace, they want to know more. People see our reactions and our words, and they want to know more. People feel the love of Jesus when they speak with us, and they are drawn to Him. That is our great commission. Our new assignment on this side of the cross. We have been entrusted to love on God’s people and care for them. Entrusted to teach and share the love of God. This is our assignment directly from the One we profess as our King, our Savior, our Lord, our Everything. When you follow someone, you pay attention to their instructions. Jesus was clear on this one, and I believe it is God’s merciful nature to give us a second chance. He redeemed us through Jesus and then to restore the trust that was lost, He has AGAIN entrusted people with great responsibility.

This time is different though! This time we have Holy Spirit with us. We are fully connected to God at all times! So we never have to walk alone or do anything apart from the wisdom of God. He is with us. Communicating with us. Empowering us to do what He has called us to do. He even promises at the end of His instructions, “I am with you even to the very end of the age.”

Emmanuel means God with us. And that is what He did. Born into earth, walked in human form with humanity, and then stayed with us from then on! He physically ascended to heaven, but spiritually is now with us ALWAYS! What a promise!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You Lord for trusting us again with Your creation. Thank You for Holy Spirit residing inside of us. Thank You for the promise that You are with us always.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Blessings,

Vanessa Lynn