Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2.

This morning in our Friday Zoom Retreat, we looked at these amazing Scripture verses and shared what they spoke to us:

My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Ephesians 6:10.

And this…For this reason I kneel before the Father, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-21.

And then to read our chapter, Zechariah 7, and find what Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, was asking them to understand, is asking all of us to understand. The notes give the background, that for the 70 years they had been in exile, they fasted in August to remember the destruction of Jerusalem; and now they are asking if that fasting needed to be continued now that the temple is being rebuilt. The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’” And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’ But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’” v. 2-14.

I know our lives are busy and stressful; and this world is confusing and complex with problems in our personal lives, in our nations, and in our world at large. It helps to take time to sit with Scripture and truly read with intention. Skimming will not take you deep. My grace is sufficient for you…for My power is made perfect in weakness…can we see the weakness in this broken world? The same weakness in Zechariah’s day. We don’t know God to trust Him. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity…which means He gave us a spirit!…But a spirit of power and love and self control…and this…Finally…be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power…not our strength or might. And all of this, every bit of it…So that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. Because what is in Creator God’s heart? Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other. Creator God has always been calling us to closer, deeper, relationship with Him. Only in relationship with Him can we share in His love for us. There is no other way.