Making Any New Year's Resolutions?

It’s New Year’s Eve. We’re on the brink of a place and time we’ve never been. One of the things people like to do to make the year more exciting is formulate a few resolutions. Resolutions are intended to help make the new year profitable and blessed. They are declarations of sorts. 

Our granddaughter and her friend have really enjoyed being at their youth event. Cassidy told us that all she wanted was to be there. Along the way though, she’s had to text us for this or that to help make the event better. Sometimes she asked for something on behalf of the friend she brought with her.  Even though she resolved to ask for nothing but to attend, she’s made a few declarations by sending us texts. Each time she’s asked for something we’ve done our best to get it for her. She trusts us enough to let us know what she needs. She has confidence that her declarations/ her resolutions will be met by us. She knows we love her and we would do anything we could to help her. 

Just by the fact of our acceptance to the Lord’s plan of salvation we are satisfied with entrance into heaven one day. That’s enough we say. And it is. Fortunately for us we have the opportunity to make petition to God for our needs along the way. Because of our relationship with God, we know we can ask Him for our life’s needs and He will answer. We know He loves us and we have confidence in His answers for our every need. We know He would do anything for us because He gave His very life for us.

What are your resolutions for the New Year? God knows this past year has had it’s ups and downs. There have been moments of great highs – joy beyond measure. He also knows there have been low moments – sorrows, rejections, pain, longings of the heart. How would you like this New Year to be different from the past? What do you really need? What do you want to declare? 

Oh beloved, God has a magnificent storehouse brimming full of everything you need for life and godliness. You can live a productive, meaningful, blessed life here and now. Although He’s saved you and you are headed for heaven, He is standing ready to supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.  Because you are His child, His declarations in the Word of God can be your declarations, your resolutions for the new year. 

Open up the Book of Resolutions and ask God to direct you to new heights with Him in 2014. He loves to grant His children’s desires, especially those which glorify Him. You can ask for more than heaven. You can ask to be more Christlike. You can ask to be more authentic. You can ask for greater faith, a deeper walk with Him or a better understanding of His Word. Do you need to be more loving? Ask Him for more love. How about more power over the enemy – his tactics, his lies, his deception.  He will answer those things that you have need of without batting an eye when they are according to His Word. More prayer, more diligence, more forgiveness, more gifts, greater understanding, and more. All those resolutions are met in Christ and sitting in the storehouse of God’s love.

Yes, heaven is yours. But because He loves you and He’s for you, there is oh so much more! Resolve to live in the light of His Word and let 2014 be the greatest time of faith you’ve ever had. Unlike New Year’s resolutions that get made and then forgotten, your resolutions and declarations of faith will be met in Christ who secured all the promises of God for you. Rejoice that where you are weakest, He is greatest. Ask Him for His will in everything and watch as He performs His will in you and through you in greater ways than you’ve ever seen before.

Isaiah 55:6  Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.  

Matthew 6:33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Psalm 40:5 Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.

John 15:16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

Matthew 9:11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord And to meditate in His temple.

Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.