Near year and a new you?

Growing up I remember hearing lots of different phrases or sayings. Some made sense and some, well, not so much. Like, “if you keep doing that, your face is going to freeze that way”. Really? Because I have never seen a horribly disfigured child whose face froze after several hours of making fun of their little brother. And if it had happened, surely there would have been a book by now. (I can even see the title, “Frozen for Life: A child prank gone bad”.)

How about one of my favorites, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. I have been on this earth for close to 40 years. I know others who have been around even longer. They have never encountered a horse that bares gifts. Maybe in some Scandinavian country that no one has ever heard of, but here in the good ole U.S. of A., to my knowledge, not one “gift horse” has ever been spotted. So if you never see one, just how are you going to have the opportunity to look one in the mouth.

Now there are those phrases that you have heard, that you may not believe as a child, but you come to understand that they are absolutely true. For a greater part of my life I have heard the phrase, “the older I get the quicker time flies”. This is, perhaps, one of the biggest understatements ever penned. The older I get, the quicker life passes me by.

We have become a nation of busy bodies. We fill our time up with whatever we can fill it up with to keep us busy. Why? What happened to a time of rest? God created the heaven and the earth in 6 days. Not 7, but 6. What happened on the seventh day? God rested. Even during the making of His creation, He took time to step back and admire what He had just created.

Let me put it in terms that you may better understand. More than likely you have a cell phone. I would say, unless you have some new technology that no one knows about, you have to recharge that cell phone battery at least a few times a week. Why? Because the battery runs out. It loses its energy. Just like the cell phone, we lose energy too. Unlike the cell phone however, we need to recharge ourselves daily.

As Christians, we need to recharge our spiritual batteries. The only way to do that is to dive into God’s word on that daily basis. Read it, study it and meditate on it. It seems so simple, but yet is the hardest thing to do.

Ephesians 5:10 says “and find out what pleases God.” How do we find that out? By reading, studying and meditating on His word. It’s how we get to know who He is and what He wants of us.

Verse 15 and 16 of the same chapter says this, “Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

I challenge you in this New Year, to reflect back on 2008 and decide what things you need to change in order to have more time for and with God. We have one life to live. How are you living it?
May you and your family have a happy and prosperous 2009.

Have Fun, Live Free, Hope Strong

Pastor G