I might suggest that most of this coming year resolutions will be forgotten by the end of 2015 or we just start them again on 1/1/2016…… If you think I am mistaken, do you remember what your new year resolutions were made for 2014? Hmmmm……My question is why do we need to make adjustments at the end of a year? Yet, we even do it over and over again, thinking that we might get different results but the same results occur, right? The reason is we are using the same methods- relying on our own strength.
If the day is the day of the Lord’s, are we not to live to seize the day? The discipline we lacked last year, will be the same this year and the next unless we terrorize ourselves into the truth of God…..without Him we can not do anything.
Yes, the Lord is awesomely terrible and terribly awesome…. That is our God. However, He is mighty and we need His might to overcome anything in our human realm. He is strong and we need His strength to overcome anything in human nature. He is wonderful, but He wants our all, so what is holding us back? So until we lay our all down and let Him who is All, be our all…. we will continually fail. In our weakness His power is made perfect. His word will always establish His word! In the flesh there is no good thing, we can do no good thing without Christ. If we do any good thing, it is because of Christ, not us…..nor should we give glory to any but God.
May I make a suggestion to change the tradition of failure over the past New Year’s Day….. Ask the Lord, what He wants for this day…. because He only gives us the day we live…..
Ask Him, then spend the New Day with Him in quietness. Let Him be God in directing our day and our days to come…. for remember He knows the end from the beginning because He is the Alpha and Omega….
Let us ask Him for His guidance for discipline, for giving, for forgiving, forgetting the past, for being made into His new creation and resting in Him…
Offer ourselves as a living sacrifice this day and let Him show Himself strong through you and me and become victorious in Him…and conquer through His power. His strength to realize and know our helplessness so He can be our Help. So then we can have this year be His best through us.
Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings to the Lord at Gibeon in 1 Kings 3:4-6, Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place: Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, Ask! What shall I give you?
We have our lives to give now as a living sacrifice, an acceptable offering. When we seriously meet the Lord with “true grit” intent, He meets us with the same intent. As written in numerous places as well as 2 Samuel 22:26-28 and Psalm 18, With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; with the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. You will save the humble people; but Your eyes are on the haughty, that You may bring them down.
Solomon requested in verse 9, Therefore give Your servant an understanding heart to judge the Lord’s people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours? The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. Then God said to him, because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.
Now here, God spoke with a condition—— So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statues and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days, ( 1 Kings 3:3-14).
We have all been called as our God’s priests and kings. So we all also have the same responsibility and honor to offer ourselves to the Lord…. We all know what is in our lives that needs to be eradicated. But to receive the heavenly gifts is in the hand of the Giver….. He gives as we ask with a pure heart of faith in His love…. Not for our gain but for Him, then for others. When we lose ourselves we gain all, because we gain Christ.
So in diligence, let us meet the Lord everyday, for everyday we live is a gift. In receiving life, let us offer ourselves to Him and wait. What will we ask for if He awakens us in a dream one night and says- what is your desire, my child?
What will be our answer…. Do we want to grow bigger or greater? Why? Whose eyes are we trying to please?
May everyday of 2015 be of divine grace and His Resurrected Life in His fullness upon and in us.
Or we can stick to your resolutions and be in the same state on 1/1/2016.
Choose Life or death this day. If we choose today and then again tomorrow, to draw near Him, it is written He will draw near to us….. In the Lord and in His day, He will grow us into what He has designed for each one of us in His plan….. He will prune this and burn this and let more light shine on this and that in our hearts and the fruit of the Lord will grow in and off our lives… for Him and His glory…. We will show ourselves in Him as we grow from glory to glory…. What a year in the Lord to live when we live for the Lord in each day we are given….. Let us look boldly for the adventure He has planned each day, before we know it all things are made new! Happy Lord’s Day, each and every day!
Selah!
