Thinking about life as another year ends

Here it is Jan 1, 2011 - a new year has begun; a time for beginnings and resolutions and good intentions. By the time we hit the end of the year (as we did yesterday), our 'resolve' can be pretty tired and worn out. So, many people see January first of the new year as a great time of renewal and new resolve.

I suppose I'm one of those people too though I'd have to admit I've never been a big one to celebrate the new year. I always seem to start out the new year with some very firm intentions but I'd have to say I probably do not make it through the year with all of my resolutions still intact - actually, usually none of them survive this arduous trip. Ha ha.

Still, it only seems fitting with 2011 beginning that I make some new year's resolutions and at least "try" to keep them for another year..... So, here goes...

Top 10 New Years Resolutions for JPR for 2011:
1. Read/study my Bible more. I am learning so much from teaching my class at church on Hebrews! I plan to do a lot more individual study like this for this year.
2. Continue to work on losing some weight - yeah, I'd like to drop another 21 pounds but it is slow to come off (even though I have had some success this year) and requires extensive work on item 3.... ha ha
3. Exercise ! Oh yeah, I am completely without excuse on this one. I have exercise equipment at home and a fully equipped gym at work (they even allow me time to do it) and a good friend at work who is willing to work-out with me. So, this year I have to man-up to this one and get busy.
4. Focus on happy for the year. It's easy with all the stress to focus on negative things so I'm gonna work on focusing on happy this year!
5. Express love more.... I usually do pretty good on this one with my family (I think - note to self - poll family about this one) but sometimes strangers in cars and other "life" situations are more of a challenge; particularly if they are purposefully being mean to me. I plan to work on my response to these situations (internal or otherwise).
6. Resolve not to let rude drivers upset me (this one ties in with #5 of course). Seems like a lot of rude people are on the roads these days but I don't have to let them raise my blood pressure so I'm gonna work on this one - for MY good! Besides as Sheila is fond of saying, 10 minutes after they have gone on their obnoxious and selfish way, they have surely forgotten about it and I'm still fuming! LOL Why put myself through that. Ok, no more...
7. Explore the guitar, piano and my music more this year. Just seems like a fun thing to do and it is something for which I have a passion.
8. Work with the doctor more to get my thyroid straightened out. This one took a topsy turfy route part-way through the year and we've been working to get it fixed. Wow talk about a little demon that can really ruin/run your life. I'm gonna whip that bad boy into shape with some help from my good doctor. I think we are on the right course now. So, here's hoping for 2011 to fix this one again...
9. Practice kindness more. I don't think of myself as an unkind person but recent events in which my health was not the best have taught me a good (and hard) lesson about how important it is to be kind and how much it means when we receive kindness. Everyone needs kindness. When we are hurting, we need it all the more. Just a kind word from someone or inquiry into how we are doing can have an incredibly positive impact to our day.
10. Work on my personal resolutions - oh yeah, I have a list of those too. It's a small list and not something I would share with the world but it's an important list and it's personal goals that I want to pursue so I'll be working on that too.

You know, I actually have a #0 resolution too (cause I'm a programmer I think everything starts at zero instead of one LOL). The reason it's #0 is because it is at the TOP of my list! I could probably best explain it as this... a good friend of mine told me he knew of a preacher who had "God is all" etched on his graveside headstone. Would that we should all live in such a way that others see that God is all in our lives. What a great new year's resolution! That's one I intend to keep.

God has been very important to me all my life. In my heart I surely desire Him to be the "all" of my life. I'm just not sure I have lived every day so as to reflect this. I plan to work on this resolution most of all this year.

God has been SO good to me both in my original family and in the one I created with Sheila. I have been richly blessed in terms of parents, parents-in-law, siblings, siblings by marriage and children. There is much for which I can be thankful to God.

I'll just share this too as we start the new year. For God to be ALL in our lives, we have to put HIS will first in our lives. That means nothing can be more important to us than God. After all, at the end of this life, we will depart it just as we arrived - with nothing! So, we will one day embark on a journey that sees our souls alone return back to God and therefore He is really is ALL truly.

This life is a short period in which many things distract us but ultimately it is a brief flash in a time line that continues into eternity. That said, we should focus all the more on the one with whom we hope to spend eternity - our God.

So, here are the plain teachings from the Bible that will help us get there. If we respect God's word and put it above our own desires, we will respond to it and do what it says in the Bible...

1. HEAR: God tells us that we have to hear His word in order to understand...
Romans 10:17: "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." We need faith to be pleasing to God and to obey him - it comes from hearing about Jesus.

2. BELIEVE: God tells us we must believe Him in order to have faith that is pleasing to Him and a faith that leads to salvation. Mark 16:16 "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

3. REPENT: We can't go on living a life full of sin and still be pleasing to God. If we are going to be His people, we have to turn away from sinful acts and center our lives on Him and Him alone. Acts 2:38: "Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

4. CONFESS: God and Jesus call us to confess Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus says we have to be willing to confess Him as Lord before our fellow man. We cannot deny Him as our savior and then still expect him to be our savior. Matthew 10:32 "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

5. BE BAPTISED: God calls for us to be baptized. It's not something people dreamed up - it's something God calls for specifically in scripture. Jesus was baptized as an example for us. Peter preached about it: Acts 2:38: "Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Paul taught about it too: Romans 6:4: "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." God taught us that baptism is for the remission of sins. We can't have our sins removed unless we are baptized per the plain teaching of scripture. I'm not sure why some people have so much trouble with this one. It's clear teaching from God's word that He requires us to be baptized and every biblical example of baptism is immersion in water; anything else is not how God has defined baptism.

For a perfect example of someone obeying the gospel look to the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch as explained in Acts chapter 8. It begins in verse 26. This was a spiritually minded man (the eunuch) who was headed back home to Ethiopia after visiting Jerusalem to worship. As he heads home, he is reading scriptures from Isaiah about the coming of Jesus - the Christ. Philip ran up to him (as directed to do so by God) and asked the eunuch if he understood what he was reading. The eunuch asked the obvious question "how can I unless someone guides me?". So, Philip climbed up into the eunuch's chariot and the bible says he opened the scriptures (Isaiah chapter 53 verse 7) and began to teach the eunuch about Jesus. When they came to water the eunuch asked what would hinder him to be baptized there. So we KNOW that part of Philip's having preached Jesus to this man included the need to be baptized. So, the scriptures in Acts 8 say that Philip and the eunuch "went DOWN into the water" and the eunuch was baptized into Jesus. The eunuch went on his way rejoicing (as well he should and anyone who has obeyed God's voice from the scriptures in becoming a Christian).

That's God's plan for becoming a child of God in Christ Jesus as revealed in scripture. It's not my words - it's God's plan. People will either read those words and respond to them in obedience to Him - or sadly they will reject His plain teaching and risk being lost eternally because they did not obey.

It is my hope that all who read this blog will give thoughtful consideration to these teachings from scripture - from God - from Jesus and do what they need to do to be acceptable in God's sight. It's not anything we earn or deserve, but our God has a huge heart full of love and is willing to forgive us through His son if we are willing to be obedient to what He has taught us.

I hope you enjoy a fresh start to the new year. I don't think you necessarily have to have "New Years Resolutions" as a formal thing but it's just good to think about your life as you start a new year and look for a few ways to make it more enjoyable in the coming year.

I wish you all the best possible year ahead filled with happiness and joy and much peace.

Jerry