Renewal

 2 Corinthians 4:16 ESV 

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  
 

 By the time you get to my kind of middle age, you start to feel the reality of this verse. Things start going wrong physically. We begin to get weaker.

 There's nothing wrong with new year's resolutions to keep fit for example, but we need to be philosophical about physical decline. Even as we begin to break down in our bodies, we can be renewed spiritually. We never need to lose our spiritual zeal and fervour.

We don't so much renew ourselves as much as we are renewed by God. Yet we're not to be passive. We're to partner with God to renew ourselves.

Spiritual renewal is 100% of the Lord. Yet we need to be all in too. If we don't want to be spiritually renewed, we won't be.

  'Lord God Almighty, please renew us spiritually, and help us not to lose heart, even as we waste away physically. In Christ's name we ask, amen'. 

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