Greetings and grace upon grace to you my faith family. Here we are finishing another year and preparing to walk WITH Jesus into a new one! I know it is just a date on the calendar, but the New Year is a wonderful time to reflect on the faithfulness of God, and on where our Redeemer is taking you in the year before you. I pray that the resources we have available to assist you with that are finding their usefulness. We have had copies at church for the past few weeks and you can download them from our website.
I encourage you to share the link with others who may not have the encouragement of community to get them focused upon THE Christ!
Please take some time in the next few days to work through your plan to place Christ, His kingdom, and His church first in the coming year. Remember, time is our most precious resource, so how we spend it is the greatest reflection of what we truly value. I know that ’Resolutions’ are often thought of in the wrong way, so they often get a bad rap. But, as Christians, our goals (resolutions) for the coming year should not be about ‘bad things we are stopping’, or even 'trivial things we are starting', but centered around God's things we are pursuing that will help us grow in Christlikeness.
What we fixate upon we migrate towards. What consumes our minds captures our hearts.
Jesus doesn’t need us to make another set of unrealized promises to Him. We have all made those mistaken commitments too many times. NO! Our commitments should be made in light of seeing Jesus as BETTER. They should help us in our pursuit of Him and His purposes and plans for us. Remember, He is not some ‘means to an end’ but He IS the END worth pursuing! He IS the promised BLESSING. He IS BETTER! In His presence there is fullness of joy!
We desire that everyone plan to make the Daily Readings tied to the Sunday message a part of your Bible reading in 2025. This allows us to all be having the same conversation around ‘what the Spirit is saying to us in the Word.’ You can get each day’s reading emailed to you by signing up for the short In the Word Today devotional I write and send out each morning. The sign up is on the homepage of our website. And let's all be on the lookout to invite others to join us on this journey with Jesus.
Let’s let 2025 be marked first and foremost by COMMUNITY — with Him, with one another, and with others who are not yet in the community of Christ. And then let it be marked by INTENTIONALITY — living as His Kingdom people, by His Kingdom power, for His Kingdom glory as we make disciple-makers TOGETHER.
May the HOPE–PEACE–JOY–LOVE of His presence be made manifest to and through us like never before in 2025!
MUCH love! Make much of Him in the New Year!
~doug
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