INTRODUCTION • It is wonderful to know that you and I can make a fresh start. • A fresh start is the opportunity to start all over again. • It is a new beginning. • With God in our lives we have the privilege and the opportunity to make a fresh start each day of our lives. • Lamentations 3:22-23 Because of the LORDs great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. • Every morning of our lives His mercies are available to us afresh and everyday His faithfulness is within our grasp. • We cannot exhaust His compassion and His great love for us. • Look at that same scripture from the NLT (New Living Translation). • NLT – ‘The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.’ • I declare that a new period of time has arrived for you. • Embrace it as you step into your new season. 1. WE ALL NEED A FRESH START • How true it is that we all need a new start. • Somehow life forces us into a rut. • Somehow the rut eventually dictates the direction of our lives. • The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. • God has more for each of us! • God has got more for you, not just more of the same but more of His favour, more of His loving-kindness and more of His abundant life. • Perhaps you feel like you need a fresh start? • Recently we enjoyed some time on the beach. As we arrived there the beach looked like a million people had walked across it. There were just footprints as far as the eye could see. We enjoyed several hours on the beach during which time high tide came and went and as we walked back to the car I noticed that the tide had come up and transformed the beach. All the footprints were gone and the beach was smooth and clear. As we walked back making new, fresh footprints I realized that this is how it is with God. He wants to come and clear away and melt away the past ruts and give us a fresh start. • In your mind’s eye, see Him coming and washing away all the past hurts, disappointments and despair and see Him preparing a new, vast, clear beach for you to explore, enjoy and discover. • “Isnt it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” - L.M. Montgomery • The future begins today. 2. LET THE BURDENS FALL OFF • One thing I have discovered is that we can’t drag the baggage of the old season into the new. • Often we can’t let go and move forward and we end up so consumed with the baggage of the past while trying to accommodate it in our future. • We need to start with a clean slate - if you are given a clean slate, you can start something again. • Recently I stayed at a property that had a large London Plain Tree at the one end. On one of the branches a parasite had taken over and this large parasite had taken root on this branch and the branch was laboring under the weight of this foreign, invasive plant and the very life seemed to be drained out of this majestic tree. One evening as we were walking around, we heard a strange sound. It sounded like an acorn falling on a tin roof. My daughter and I stopped and we wondered what it was, but it was silent again, so we strolled on further. We heard the sound again, and again we wondered what it could be as there was no wind and everything was still. As we walked further, suddenly this branch, with the large parasite, came crashing down from the tree. The noise we had heard was the branch breaking and the whole branch came away and the parasite was removed in one moment. Fortunately we were a safe distance away, but as this happened it was as if the Lord spoke to me and said that He wants to cause those things that have taken root, those things that have sapped the life out of us, to fall off us. • Today, let it be a day when you let those things that are holding you back drop off of you. • Let your Heavenly Father come and let Him remove the burdens and the baggage. • Let Him come now and remove the weight of the burdens, the weaknesses, the life-sapping foreign invasions in your life. • Let us walk free, unhindered and untethered into the freedom He has for us. 3. MAKE A DECISION TO ENGAGE • This is not a time to disengage. • It is time to make a decision to engage. • I was recently standing in the waves on the beach, enjoying the cool refreshing water, when I noticed a helicopter flying down the beach, just above the surf in my direction. I stopped and stood in the waves watching and imagining what it would be like to fly low-level over the beach. As it approached I could see into the cockpit and I could clearly see the pilots looking down at me. Then, the one pilot raised his hand and waved at me. Instantaneously I waved back as we acknowledged each other and they passed over my head. I thought to myself, the people on the beach must think I am crazy, a grown man waving at a helicopter? But I did not care, because even through this God was speaking to me. God wants us to engage with Him. • There is an old song with the following words: Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You’ll find He’s not too busy to hear your heart’s cry. He is passing by this moment, your needs to supply. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by! • Sometimes we are so worried about what others will say. Perhaps some will say that we are fanatics. • But don’t let that influence you. • It is time to engage with God. • It is time to engage with the work of the Lord. • It is time to engage with His chosen vehicle, the church. • It’s time to get involved. • It’s time to get committed. • It’s time to start making a difference and doing something different. • Like the gears in an engine that come together and interlink or interlock and produce results, it is time for you and me to engage and interlock our lives with God, His people and His church. 4. GREEN PASTURES IS WHAT GOD HAS PLANNED • Psalm 23:2 ‘He makes me lie down in green pastures.’ • God wants to do something fresh and give us a fresh start. • 3 ASPECTS TO TAKE NOTE OF: 1. ‘Green pastures.’ This speaks of something fresh, rich, nourishing and definitely something to thrive on. 2. ‘HE’ You don’t have to rely on your nourishment to come from anyone else. The Lord says I, Myself will be your Shepherd. 3. ‘Lie Down.’ (A place of rest) 2013 may have felt quite harsh, a bit barren and difficult and although we have seen and experienced His goodness we look forward to a fresh start in green pastures. • God is the God of the fresh start. • 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. • 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. • Acts 3:19-20 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. 5. LET THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD COME UPON YOU • Samson was one of the unusual characters of the Bible. • He seemed to make lots of mistakes. • But God used him in many ways. • Even though he may have made his fair share of mistakes, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, awesome things happened. • Judges 15:14 The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. • The New Living Translation says it like this: ‘But the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists.’ • In the Holman Christian Standard Bible it says: ‘The Spirit of the LORD took control of him.’ • The touch of the Spirit of the Lord on our lives makes all the difference. • In fact, the touch of the Spirit of the Lord on Samson’s life led to great victory! • Judges 15:15 Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. • God has victory in store for you. • Let His Spirit come upon you today. • Receive a fresh infilling right now. • Lord, I pray that You, by Your Holy Spirit will come upon us now. How we need Your Spirit. Give us strength to help us stand. Living water come and flow to us, shower down Your mercy and shower down Your grace on our lives. Amen. A PROMISE Psalm 65:11 You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance. How gracious is the Lord that He affords us the opportunity to make a fresh start, not only once a year, but each and every day.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:45:30 +0000
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