A few thoughts...

The heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick—who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

So I watched To End All Wars, a movie about some prisoners of war in a Japanese prison camp in WWII the other night. A movie that begins a little slow eventually turns into this beautiful thought-provoking film filled with truth. I was struck by a quote at the end of the movie from the narrator, who said that when the war ended, he for the first time saw himself in the eyes of his enemies.

What a quote... the whole movie is about how this band of guys survived this POW camp admist tons of junk and mistreatment. But somehow, this guy didn't see himself as any better... he realize put under the right conditions, the right circumstances, he'd turn out just the same. He realized the truth of Jeremiah 17:9... that though there are some people who appear better than others, beyond appearances, beyond the actions, the lies the same desperately wicked heart in all of us.

So I've been thinking a lot about that, and I am so thankful I serve Jesus, the Life-Giver, the Life-Transformer. I serve the Jesus who is in the business of taking our desperately wicked hearts and exchanging them for His. He is in the business of removing hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of clay. I'm thankful for a God that saves us from ourselves. We are so desperately sick and hopeless, in a mess we cannot get out of, but the Jesus, the Life-Giver, pulls us out of our mess and saves us.

And I'm thankful He is not finished with me, and that He who began a good work in me will carry it to completion. What a great God we serve, a God whose name is Jesus.