Resolutions

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8

I think this covers about every New Year’s resolution we could think of making.  And, we know that as we resolve, God is on our side to help us make 2014 a year in which we love each other and serve Him.

Ponder This

Do not call to mind former things,

Or ponder things of the past.

Behold I will do something new,

Now it will spring forth;

Will you not be aware of it?

I will make a roadway in the wilderness,

Rivers in the desert.

Psalm 43:18-19

It is the end of the year and I know some people like to ponder the past year and reflect on what happened.

Not me.  I am ready to think about what will happen next.  What is God’s next great surprise? 

A rear view mirror is just that a rear view.  Instead of staring down the past, let us greet the New Year with anticipation and open minds and hearts and willing hands to serve God.

No matter what is in the past or what the future holds, God is with us.

Sack Cloth and Ashes

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence

And do not take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation

And sustain me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:10-13

Everybody has tough times.  Bad stuff can overwhelm us and make us feel as though we are without hope.  We fixate on what we cannot fix and while we are fixating, God is fixing us.

God never leaves us.  When we run away, He chases us down the street, all the while calling to us, “I am the hope of the world, trust Me.” 

Just turn around and flag Him down and He will pick you up.

Salvation For Everyone

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Romans 1:16-17

The early Christians had a magnificent revelation from God that salvation through Jesus was for everyone.  Jesus, the Messiah, did not come as a political leader as the Jews expected, but as a spiritual leader who broke the barrier of sin which separated man from God. 

The power of the Gospel is that through Jesus, God extends His forgiveness and love to everyone.  No one is too good or too bad.  We are all candidates for forgiveness.

All we have to do is ask Jesus to come into our lives, forgive us and to declare Jesus to be our Lord, Master and Savior and we are forgiven. 

When we have faith, God does the rest.

Our GPS

Your word is a lamp to my feet

And a light to my path.

Psalm 119:105

God does not leave us to fumble through life alone.  He gave us His Word, the Bible, to use as a guide.  We can read it, meditate on it and apply its principles to our actions. 

The Word of God lights our way.

High Voltage

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven or on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all fullness of God. 

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to His be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generation forever and ever.  Amen

Ephesians 3:14-21

If you aren’t charged up for God, after reading this prayer you should be.

God welcomes our prayers, in whatever words we chose to use.  However, He also provides us prayers we can pray.  This prayer is powerful in that it opens us up to receive from God the knowledge of His great love for us. 

God’s love is high voltage and it is in us.