1. Responsibility and Repentance: In order to experience God’s promise we must first see sin as exceedingly sinful (Romans 7:13) and God’s anger against sin must burn within us. The beginning of the pathway to the promise is that when the Holy Spirit convicts saying, “You are the man!” your response, like David’s, is “I have sinned” (II Samuel 12:5-13). The beginning of the pathway to destruction, on the other hand, is to give excuses like Adam did (Genesis 3:11-12). We learn from Jesus’ example that if you want to be happiest person on earth, you must love righteousness and hate sin (Psalm 45:7). The joy that is triumphant in every circumstance of your life is not a joy that you can manufacture, but the joy that God pours over your life. We learn from the 2 thieves on the cross beside Jesus that even in the very presence of the work of salvation, you can miss it, if you don’t take responsibility and repent of your sin. God says, “Only acknowledge your sin… and I will bring you to Zion.” (Jeremiah 3:13-15)