“They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. I tried over and over again to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction.”Jeremiah 32:33 NET https://bible.com/bible/107/jer.32.33.NET

Correction is a hard thing. Watch two-year-olds, and they will demonstrate our natural disdain for correction. It takes humility to be corrected, a quality most of us lack to any significant degree. Yet the Lord our God tells us we are broken, flawed, and bent toward evil naturally. Not because He made us this way but because sin flows through our DNA, corrupting the beautiful image of Himself He created in us. God loves us and remains committed to forming us into the image of His perfect First Born Son, the Lord Jesus. Into His perfect righteousness, we are being fashioned to become what He had already declared us to be through the appropriation of the Son’s life to us when we surrendered our lives to Him at the cross, seeking His pardon for all our sins. The word of God is God’s gift to us to begin the correction we need, the transformation we must undergo to become like Jesus in every way. The Spirit of God, His second gift, uses the word of God to bring it alive in power to our hearts and minds to make us into the image of God the Son. The church, the third gift for transforming us, confirms or denies this work in us, encouraging, equipping, helping, and walking with us through this transformative work even as each member is engaged in a similar transformation. God is committed to our welfare, but we must turn to Him, not away from Him. We must listen to His correction by flooding our minds with His Word, seeking the presence of His Spirit in our hearts, and joining with His church by our hands and feet to demonstrate the reality of Christ within us, Who is the hope for the world.