Let our Lord rule you instead of your past.
At the end and at the beginning of a year, people tend to get reflective. What happened in the past year and what might happen in the next? Such reflection can result in people feeling energized or, frankly, immobilized.
We're almost to 2025. Are you feeling energized or immobilized?
Focus on Whom you know: The importance of deriving our identity from God and not other people cannot be overemphasized in our image-focused world. When we know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we know we are God's very own children and heirs to His kingdom, which cannot be shaken! We know He works all things together for good for us who know Him! And NOTHING from the past year or the next can stop His love and ultimate-best eternal plan for us. Anxiety melts away in the warmth of His love. Go ahead and throw down every worry, every care at His feet. Go ahead and mourn when needed while knowing He cares and comforts like no other. Go ahead and trust Him, knowing He goes ahead of you.
Remember Whose you are. Remember His character. Remember His love! You are loved and irreplaceable. Remember His promises. He is real. He is near! And He makes all things new.
Go ahead and let go. Let go of the past. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Appreciate the best of the past. Mourn and lament the worst of it. Learn from it and notice His provisions all along. And then open your heart and hands to Him who loves you and offers Himself to you. Ask Him to help you drop any sin. Ask Him to help you stop rationalizing and start realizing His Word.
He is with you. He is for you. Let's be sure to be for Him and welcome Him to rule in every area of our lives. He is so good -in the bad times and the good. Let's love Him back today and every day in the new year. Amen?
Let our Lord rule you instead of your past. He makes us new in Christ! And, when He returns, He will make all things new. (Hallelujah!)
All of this may sound good. But don't take my words for it. Instead, take God's Word to heart:
"Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!" (II Corinthians 5:17).
"Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen,
The people I formed for Myself, that they may set forth My praise [and they shall do it]" (Isaiah 43:18-21).
"And He Who is seated on the throne said, See! I make all things new. Also He said, Record this, for these sayings are faithful (accurate, incorruptible, and trustworthy) and true (genuine)" (Revelation 21:5).
-Stacie Ruth Stoelting Hudzinski, www.PrayingPals.org
Do you know Jesus personally yet? Now is the time. Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven. Click here to learn more.
Photo Credit: K-LOVE Radio
|