Aren't you glad that things don't stay the same? Aren't you thankful that He is still able to speak the Word and make all things new? His creative skills were not used up when He spoke worlds into space and breathed life into the nostrils of mankind. Oh no, He is still molding, making and putting things together as they should be. And for what? Or should I say, for whom? Why even the very routine experience of one year passing and another beginning is His way of creating. The old is gone, the new has come.
As I sat here this morning wondering about the days ahead, not wanting to make resolutions that only become fractured with time it became clear that while our own efforts to keep man determined resolutions usually fail, God does want us to be intentional, determined and even resolved about some things.
In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers starts the new year pointing to Philippians 1:20:
...my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.
The point he drives home is that we are to "shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only -- my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone." He explains that what Paul is really saying in the Philippians passage is this:
"My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest -- my best for His glory."
Now I do believe that is a resolution that I can keep. Not because I have any ability to do it on my own. But because the God who calls us to be intentional about keeping Him as above all things in our life, equips and empowers us to do the very thing He wants us to be resolved and determined to do.
So here we are at the beginning of a new year -- 2008. Are you ready? determined? intentional? resolved? I am! I'm ready to take the next 366 days ahead (yes, we have that blessed extra day this year) and allow Him to be my everything, my all in all, the Magnified One in my life.
Lord Jesus, thank you for being the Faithful One who calls us to live a life set apart for You and then turns around and accomplishes in us the very thing you call us to do. Astounding! Thank you for another year ahead. Alot of mistakes were made in 2007, but I praise You for being the God of the second chance, do-overs, chance after chance to learn and then do it right! I want to live intentional, determined, resolved this year, Lord, to being the looking glass to everyone around me that makes me look smaller and magnifies You. I want everything I do this year to be the best that I have to give so that Your glory may be seen in my life -- whether in good times or in bad. Happy New Year, Jesus! This one is Your's and Your's alone! Now...show me Your glory! Paint beautiful, bright and vivid colors of Your love, Your power and Your goodness onto the canvas of my days in 2008! Make it new. Make it beautiful. Make it glorious! Amen.
[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [ which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] (Philippians 3:10 Amplified)
Blessings,
Dori
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