WELCOMING GOD’S WORD THROUGHOUT 2017, OUR NEW YEAR
Scripture Passage —“…when you received the word of God….you welcomed it NOT AS THE WORD OF MEN, BUT AS IT IS IN TRUTH, THE WORD OF GOD, which also effectively works in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13 NKJV)
Happy 2017 New Year!!!! It’s always exciting to envision things that can be done to bring more strength, peace, and accomplishment to us in the new year. Someone has said, I value my future; it’s where I will be spending the rest of my life. And there is a real sense that the decisions we make these days will determine what our new year holds. That’s why I pray that we can all make godly decisions, because that’s where we can be assured of a Happy New Year. Living in God’s will is ALWAYS the best place to be. So, what will guarantee a wonderful and happy New Year?!
By way of concept, we can rightly say, by investing in things that have eternal value. Doing what will contribute to a closer walk with our Savior, focusing on being a true disciple of Jesus, and seeking ways of serving Him that will maximize His growing me and leadership in my life.
In a word, if we can just be WILLING RECEIVERS of God and all He has to give me, that will surely be sufficient. How can I be a regular ‘receiver’ of God Himself, His truth, His ways? By sitting at His feet and learning from Him. Practically, that means by receiving all He has for me in His Word. There is so much power in the truth of God’s Word that we can hardly conceive of it…our brains are too small to grasp it. There is power in God’s Word to encourage faith. There is power in God’s Word to provide correction and instruction. There is power in God’s Word to illuminate Christ and help us see Him clearly. There is power in God’s Word to reveal Truth and show us how to live in it. There is power in God’s Word to Inspire the imagination. (Explore God, there are surprises for you everywhere!) There is power in God’s Word to shape civilizations. There is power in God’s Word to enable us to endure life’s challenges. As in the garden, God was seeking Adam; He has been seeking man ever since, desiring to show us how we might have a Happy New Year and be at our best so He might be glorified. The Bible is to us what the star was to the Wise Men; but if we spend all of our time gazing upon it, observing it’s motions, admiring it’s splendor, WITHOUT BEING LED TO CHRIST by it, the use of it will be lost to us.
I would encourage each person to participate in a life transformation group. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” It is making a decision to meet for 1 hour a week with two other people of the same gender, to experience community, accountability, confidentiality, flexibility, and reproducibility. All three read the same scripture passage(Anywhere from 5-10 chapters a week), they come together to respond to character conversation questions, pray for people who need Christ, and let God shape them (sanctify them) through the Word. The emphasis is listening for God, as you read, for Him to speak His ‘word’ to you.
Can you imagine what would occur in your new year if you, along with the rest of the church body, were all receiving God regularly through our week as we read His life-fulfilling Word? As A.W. Tozer has said, “The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.” Making this a year of God-discovery through the Word will provide us a year full of happiness and pleasure as we get to know God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit better.