Discovering Jesus Together
DAILY VERSE · Day 242

Skin and Spots

Habits of Heart

Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.
JEREMIAH 13:23 · ESV

The question is blunt on purpose: can a leopard change its spots? Everyone already knows the answer. That's what makes it land — the writer isn't asking you to figure something out, he's asking you to admit something you already know about deeply ingrained patterns, including your own.

Maybe it's a temper, a habit, a way of shutting people out when things get hard. You've tried to will yourself into being different and it hasn't fully taken. That's not a moral failure unique to you — it's what this verse is naming as ordinary human reality.

What's notable is what the verse doesn't say. It doesn't say change is impossible for anyone, ever — it says it's impossible for you to pull off by sheer effort, on your own, accustomed as you are to the patterns you're in. That's a different problem, and it might need a different kind of help than just trying harder.

What's the pattern in you that willpower alone hasn't been able to touch?

A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.