Sunday Pastor Don shared his message How to have a Blessed New Year Today we bring you the second and final part of his message. We hope it blesses you, that you will like and share it with others. 1. Have a vision for what you your life to be like in one year The Bible says that without a vision, the people perish. A vision is a mental picture of some desired goal. It is what you would like to be true. Maybe you have a problem with anger. What would it be like to not have that problem next year? Take a good look at your life. What would you like to have changed. If you don’t have a vision for something different, then you will always be the same. People who drift through life without a clear vision are more likely to come to the end of their lives wondering what should have been or could have been. They have drifted through life, and now there is no way to go back and do it over again. Vision, on the other hand, is like a compass that keeps you moving in the direction of God’s plan. It allows you to see that desired thing before comes to pass. If you can’t see it in the present, it is likely that you will never experience it in the future. It would be very helpful if you would get before the Lord and ask Him to help you see a vision of who and what you should be. Knowing God and His ways doesn’t just happen. You must seek Him. Proverbs 2:1 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, 3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. 2. Be a person who fears the Lord Proverbs 9:10, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” There are three kinds of fears. The first is to be afraid of things you should not be afraid of. The Bible says the fear of man brings a snare. Some people have phobias. They may be afraid of heights, spiders or anything else. Second fear is a healthy fear. The young child learns to fear the road and keeps from being run over. The fear of the Lord does not mean that you are afraid of him. It doesn’t mean you run and hide when you think of him. The fear of the Lord is to see him as he is, sovereign, all-powerful judges the universe who doesn’t miss anything. The fear of the Lord is a deep how some respect God permeates your entire being” in the garden when the first couple was tempted, they should have had a holy fear of disobeying God. The foundation of problems with our society is that people don’t fear the Lord. They don’t take them seriously. They made jokes about him. I can tell you for sure that God is no joke, and if you are to have a life of blessing you must fear him. Obeying God’s ways is the key that opens the door of His blessing on you. Partial obedience is no obedience. Hunched over his desk with a pen knife in his hand, Thomas Jefferson sliced carefully at the pages of holy Scripture cutting out passages and pasting them together to create a Bible more to his liking. The Bible has been called, “The Jefferson Bible.” He created a book that he could feel comfortable with. We would not like to admit it, but many of us have created a book within our own souls that accepts the things we want to do. 3. Make your decisions based on what is right rather than what appears to be right. The year 2015 will present you with many choices as to what you should do. The interesting thing is the wrong way often looks like the right way, and the right way looks like the wrong way. 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than mans wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than mans strength. The Corinthians were Greek and, as such, they considered themselves to be very wise and intellectual.. Greek culture was unsurpassed in the ancient world. The great names of poetry and oratory, of art and science, of philosophy and learning were Greek names. We think of men like Homer and Herodotus, Socrates, Plato, Plutarch and Aristotle and Archimedes, and the list continues. When the Corinthians were presented with the message of Christ, they thought it to be foolishness. The word folly literally means silly. It is silliness, nonsense, to those who are perishing. The very thought of one man dying for the sins of all people seemed ridiculous to the learned Greek. In their minds, they were the wise ones. They were the greatest philosophers and prided themselves on their great knowledge. It is no different today. Many times the intellectuals of our day consider Christianity to be foolishness. The word of the cross is folly to these people. Just think of some of the things Christians have done that seem foolish to the world. For example Mr. Borden, one of the board in milk sons, gave his money to the Lord’s work. C. Studd was a great cricket player. Everyone knew of C.T. Studd just as people know the names of famous athletes today. He gave it all up to become a missionary. The same was true with Eric liddle who gave up his running to be a missionary. When unsaved people look at such things, it looks foolish. Don’t expect people who don’t know the Lord to applaud you when you make when you make spiritual decisions. When I moved to Houston to start this church, I left a church whose building was relatively new. Things were going very well. I had a church family that loved one another. The finances were good. The church bought me a new car. I could pick whatever I wanted, and they would pay the insurance. We were considering building a new house. I lived about 20 minutes from my mother and all of my relatives that I grew up with. I had a monthly book allowance that would amount to over $200.00 in today’s terms. I chose to leave everything behind and move to Houston with no church, no money in a culture I wasn’t used to. How wise was that? From human reasoning, it looked like a very foolish thing to do, but God’s will is always right, even though it may look wrong. 5. Have The attitude of a servant If someone were to ask you what you are, how many would say, “I am a slave?” We wouldn’t say that, but the early Christians did. Many names have been given to those who follow Christ. The one we use the most is the word “Christian.” Interestingly, the followers of Jesus Christ were not called “Christians” until ten to fifteen years after the church began. Before that time, they were known simply as disciples, brothers, believers, saints, and followers of the Way which came from John 14:6, when Jesus said, I am “the way, the truth. According to Acts 11:26, it was in Antioch of Syria that “the disciples were first called Christians. We may be called Christians, but our attitude is to be that of a servant. We are all to serve others so that we can serve God. Back in the first century, slaves owned nothing. Neither did they have any desire for anything for themselves. They had one purpose in life-to do the will of their master. When you read the New Testament and find the authors identifying themselves as “servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is what they are saying. They are saying, “We are slaves of Christ.’ John Newton, the writer of the most popular hymn in history, Amazing Grace said: … if two angels in heaven were given assignments by God at the same time, one of them to go and rule over the greatest nation on earth and the other to go sweep the streets of the dirtiest village, each angel would be completely indifferent as to which one got which assignment. It simply wouldn’t matter to them. Why? Because the real joy lies in being obedient to God. For a Christ follower, the important thing isn’t what God has us doing; the important thing is that we’re doing what God wants us to do. If we don’t know anything else about God’s will for our lives, we do know He wants us to be His servants. As we make that commitment, He directs us in the particulars. How much different will you be in 2015? It all depends on how obedient you are to the Lord. If you will seek the Lord and His ways for you one day at a time, next year you will be far closer to the Lord than you are today. This is something you have to do on purpose. Will you dedicate yourself to doing God’s will?
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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