New Year, New Me?
January 10, 2021
A few notes from my pastor’s message at church last week:
Success in life is faithfulness to Him, faithfulness to each other, and faithfulness to His mission.
We’ve welcomed a new year. What are we feeling? Are we weeping or rejoicing (Ezra 3:11-13)? I invite you to welcome both, trusting God in His plans in all things.
What are we expecting? A disappearance of the hardship our world has faced? Going back to what life was before? God is done with the past... He is working in the now. We should be too.
“How can we sing the Lord’s song on foreign ground?” Psalm 137:4
We asked this question in the midst of last year’s challenges. A year of a foreign time. But a year of blessings, a year God called us to open our eyes and to put Him first. A year where He broke down our idols.
In this new year, what success or resolutions are we chasing?
Success in life is faithfulness to Him, faithfulness to each other, and faithfulness to His mission.
I want to walk in prayer, make disciples, bless the world around me, and preach that the good news has come for all people. I want to be faithful to His calling.
“Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35
The biblical love we see and feel and experience on this earth is just a whisper of the love of God. Let's love without hesitation this year.
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
Catch that. He is with us. To the end of the age.
We can set goals for the year. We can have a drive to get something accomplished. We can have things we need and want to work on. But our worth in Jesus is not something that needs to be left behind along with the old year. Are your goals for the new year affirming who you are in Jesus? Or are they chasing the world and leaving God’s truth for you behind?
It may be a new year, but my worth in my King is the same. A worthy daughter who has been put on this earth to do far more for God’s kingdom, not my own. Here we are in a new year, but with the same God. A God who never changes. A God who is infinitely greater than our minds could ever imagine.
¨But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength.¨ 2 Timothy 4:17