Dear Faith Family, 

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, (Ephesians 4:22-24). 

The verse for the day on the Bible app came from Luke 6:28, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  Ok…I think.  See, just after reading those words, this morning, I headed to the dentist’s office.  Should I have been concerned? 

I grew up in the “lead age”.  You know, when they filled cavities with lead fillings, (I think there were so many left over Civil War musket balls that they had to come up with a use for them.  Ok.  Maybe not.).  The fillings were so cool that I collected a mouth full of them (it’s like a lead museum). 

Small problem.  Over time those musket ball fillings begin to break down.  And the surrounding teeth (what’s left of them)?  Yeah, they begin to break down as well. 

So today was the day!  Frankly, I was looking forward to a new tooth.  What I wasn’t looking forward to was the removal of the old tooth.  What a picture of the spiritual surgery that the Great Physician graciously performs in our lives! 

We are advocates of the new.  We like new things.  Things like compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  It’s the practical, painful process of removal that we don’t like.  Things like anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk.  The process can be tedious and time consuming – the whole transformation thing. 

Prior to today’s dental appointment were the cleanings, x-rays, and the “ah-ha” there’s a crack in your tooth.  Are there current circumstances and people in our lives that God is using to expose decay, to expose stuff that needs to be removed from our lives that He might replace it with something better? 

Maybe it’s time to stop blaming the circumstances and people in our lives as the cause of our decay and start being grateful that they are being used to expose our need – a need that can be corrected. 

And so, with King David we pray: Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting, (Psalm 139:23-24)! 

Out with the old and in with the new, 
Pastor Karl