Days turn into months and years and decades - and it’s possible to grow older without changing or maturing. Perhaps there is a better version of yourself and of your life that you can envision. But what would it actually take to arrive there in the future?

2 Peter 1:3-11

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;

and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;

and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, a make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble,

and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Our words are powerful. They can reflect what is happening inside of us, which means they can also be evidence of how God is transforming us! And our words can help transform others. How can we use our words this summer to encourage people around us?

Ephesians 4:17-29

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

That, however, is not the way of life you learned

when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

to be made new in the attitude of your minds;

and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

“In your anger do not sin”[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,

and do not give the devil a foothold.

Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Proverbs 18:21

The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Matthew 12:34

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Proverbs 16:24

Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

In the book of Ruth there are no miracles, no battles, no dramatic moments, no audible voice of God – just ordinary people trying to figure out life as it comes at them. And this is exactly what makes it such a powerful story. Ruth reminds us that God is often working in ways we don’t see in the ordinary moments of life. Especially in our pain. In times of pain we can be tempted to believe that God is great, but not always good. Ruth gives us the courage and faith to choose to follow God even in the midst of our pain.

Ruth 1:1-22

In the days when the judges ruled,[a] there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.

They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,

Both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.

May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud

And said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?

Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—

Would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara,[c] because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.

I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

We're all navigating change. And underneath it sits an honest question: can God be trusted with this? Abram's story says the God who calls you into change is the one thing that never changes. He doesn't leave you to figure it out alone; He leads you through it. Change is constant. God is consistent.

What is the definition of the good life? We all have an idea, but sometimes God’s definition of the good life is not exactly the same as our definition of good. One of the best parts of the good life as God defines it, is that there is no condemnation in Jesus. Because of Jesus we are forgiven and made right with God. God sees us without blemish or defect. So what will it take for us to experience this truth in our lives?

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:1-4 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The labels we carry do not determine our future. God specializes in using unlikely people and redeeming broken stories for His purposes.

Joshua 2:1

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies...So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

Joshua 2:9-11

"I know that the Lord has given you this land...For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below."

Joshua 2:21

She tied the scarlet cord in the window.

1 Corinthians 1:27

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

When you see time the way God sees time, only then will you make the most of your time.

Ecclesiastes 1

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago;

it was here before our time.

No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”

Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-12

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

Nothing has a greater impact on the direction and quality of a child’s life than their relationship with their parents.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.