The Big Picture - January 2026

Welcome to the new year! 2026 is upon us and the Lord Jesus has great things in store for you! I encourage you to walk closer to God than ever before. Lean into His Word and make it first place in your life. Let the Spirit of God that lives in you guide you into all truth. And allow peace and love rule your whole life.

                We are continuing our series, The Big Picture. In this series we have seen that God’s ways are higher than our ways. We have seen that we can limit God by thinking too small or being invested in the wrong interests. Finally, we have seen that when God moves He deals with the root of the problem.

                This month we want to present the fact that “Natural change begins with Spiritual change.” Another way to say that is any Godly change you see with your eyes began with a change in the spirit realm.

                We can see the precept of this in the second chapter of Ephesians. Read verses one through five. In these verses Paul explains that at one time, before we knew Christ, we walked in the lusts of our flesh. We fulfilled the desires of our flesh. That’s what we were all about. But a quickening happened within us when we made Jesus our Savior. Quickened means to be made alive.

                This quickening was done in the spirit realm. Your spirit man, the real you, was made alive. You were changed from death to life. In your conversion you were made a new creation. But even though that process was done in the spirit realm it began to affect your natural walk.

                As a born-again Christian you have the ability to walk by the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of your flesh. Sin was defeated. So, you can now control that tongue that always gets you in trouble. How do you do that? By using the very life within you to control your flesh on the outside. So, you see how a natural change in your life began with a spiritual change. It always works that way. Let’s see an example of Jesus teaching this principle.

                This story of Jesus is found in John 3:1-8. It is the story of Nicodemus coming to see Jesus in the night. Nicodemus begins to ask a question of Jesus , but Jesus gets right to the heart of the matter. Jesus begins to teach him exactly what he needed to know. Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.”

                Jesus’ message was simple, yet profound. The beginning of understanding and walking in the things of God begins with a change in your spirit. You must be born again. Do you want to know God deeper? It starts with a spiritual change. Do you want to live better? It starts with a spiritual change. Any natural change we are going to see in our life begins with a spiritual change!