Prescription for a Happy New Year

A good way to start the new year and every new day:

1. Present yourself to God each morning. Give him your day. 

 "Here I am Lord.  Fill me with your love and peace today."  

Present your bodies a sacrifice--living, sanctified,

 acceptable to God--your intelligent service. Romans 12:1 (YLT) 

2.  Ask for his guidance in everything that will come your way today. 

"Lord, what ever happens today give me wisdom and guidance to do and say the right thing." 

 He guides the humble in what is right and 

teaches them his way. 

Ps 25.9 (NIV)

3.  Tell God everything you are concerned about even the small things.  

I pour out my complaints before him 

and tell him all my troubles. 

Psalm 142.2 (NIV)

4.  Leave all your concerns with him.  Trust. 

" Lord, I trust that you will take care of everything that I am concerned about today. " 

Give all your worries and cares to God,

for he cares about you. 

1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

5.  Ask for strength and courage to follow and obey him in everything today.  

 And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus. 

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT) 

6.  Yield quickly when you sense rebellion, anxiety or self will rising in you. 

"Lord,  I quietly submit my spirit again to your will.  Don't let me be overtaken by my own emotions or desires that are not pleasing to you."   

 When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn.

Wherever I go, my enemies have set traps for me.

 Psalm 142:3 (NLT)

7.  Be thankful and accept what ever comes your way today as from the hand of God. 

"Thank you Lord that you are using everything I face today to teach and train me and to change me to be more like you."   

Be thankful in all circumstances, 

for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 

1 Thess. 5:18 (NLT) 

8.  Allow God's peace to rule in every circumstance. 

His peace will guard your hearts and minds

 as you live in Christ Jesus.  

Philippians 4:7 (NLT) 

9.  Rest in him.  

"Lord,  I rest from my own labors and strivings as I trust in you today."

 Let my soul be at rest again, 

for the LORD has been good to me. 

 Psalm 116:7

10.  Rejoice.

"Lord, thank you for the joy you give.  I choose to rejoice and be happy in every situation that I face today .  

 Always be full of joy in the Lord. 

I say it again—rejoice! 

Phil. 4:4 (NLT)

Harmony

How wonderful and pleasant it is

 when we live together in harmony!

 Psalms 133:1-3 (NLT)

There is something so beautiful, so wonderful when we create an atmosphere of harmony in our interactions with others.  This isn't an easy thing to do with all the stresses and offenses that can assault our relationships.  Learning to live together in harmony is a precious gift which brings blessing and refreshing to our lives. 

Think of an orchestra.  Harmony is created, not by every instrument being alike or playing the same note, but by the instruments being tuned together and playing the sounds they were created to make.  When they all blend together a beautiful symphony is formed.

Each person has a different gift and a different style.  As we accept and honor each other as we are and build each other up with words of kindness, gentleness and respect we help to create an atmosphere of harmony.

Lord, we desire to live together in harmony.  Help us to work through the difficulties and deal with the offenses that make for discord.  Grant us the gift and blessing of harmony in all our relationships.

May God, who gives this patience and encouragement,

 help you live in complete harmony with each other.

Romans 15:5 (NLT)

• ---

Loved

See how very much our Father loves us,

 for he calls us his children,

 and that is what we are!

1 John 3:1 (NLT)

The very foundation of all of our service and all of our life is our knowledge of the love of God.  Everything we do springs from this place.  As we gain a deeper understanding and experience of His love, the more effective we will be in every area of our lives.

In the following illustration from Self-Esteem: By God’s Design, Dr. Larry Day asks us to imagine a parent’s love toward their sleeping infant as a fresh reminder of God’s love for us. 

Imagine with me for a moment one of those times in the evening when you tiptoe into your young child’s room to see if they are okay and asleep.  As you stand over your son’s or daughter’s crib and watch them quietly sleeping, you notice how their face looks so calm, peaceful, and angelic.  They look so sweet, innocent, and lovable.  As you gaze down upon that little bundle of humanity, no doubt you begin to experience an amazing assortment of feelings:  love, warmth, pride, awe, tenderness, caring, and concern.

In those few moments of quietness, you don’t see them as the “monster” that did all those things that drive you crazy.  The yelling, crying, fighting, and misbehaving that took place throughout the day fade into the background.  All hassles are set aside as you look at this sleeping form and see a little person.  You feel a deep warm love for them simply because they are there.

Before leaving the room, you feel the strongest urge to pick them up, hold them in your arms, and kiss them softly on the cheek.  But you don’t.  Why not?  Because you don’t want to wake them up and spoil the moment.  You know that as soon as they open their eyes and mouth you will have to deal with their behavior (Doing) and you will lose the enjoyment of their Being.  So you lean over, gently kiss them on the cheek, and quietly leave the room.

I know it is hard for some of you to feel that God really loves you when you have failed and made such a mess of things.  We all think our mistakes, failures, sins, and shortcomings stand as witnesses against us that we don’t deserve to be loved.  We believe God must be fed-up with our bad attitudes and stupid choices, and that that He wants nothing to do with us until we straighten out.

During times like these we need to look at the face of a sleeping child.  Watching them in their simplest and purest human form, can remind us that this is how God sees us.  He came into our bedroom last night, looked down upon us while we were sleeping, and saw us as His child, created in His image, and He deeply loved us. He saw us in our truest humanity – formed from dust, finite and fallen, but bearing His image in our very being – and He loved us for WHO WE ARE and not for what we have or have not done.*

As I meditate upon this illustration I have a sense of God's presence and an confirmation of the truth of his love for me. The message is clear.  I am deeply loved no matter what I do.  Even in the face of all my failings and shortcomings, I am loved and valued just as I am. I don’t have to do anything to be loved.  You and I are valuable not because of what we do, but just because we are the objects of his love.

When we truly assimilate the fact that we are deeply loved by God, that we are completely accepted and forgiven and are recipients of all of his grace and mercy we will be better able to give that same sense of love and acceptance to others.  We will be better able to love others when we have received the depth of God's love into our hearts.

We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19 (NIV)

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,

  may have power, together with all the saints,

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--

that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Eph 3:17-19 (NIV)

*Day, Larry G., Ph.D, Self-Esteem: By God's Design. Pg. 35,36

Dealing with Depression

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Psalms 139:11-12 (NIV)

Even in our times of darkness, discouragement and depression God faithfully stands by to help us through.  He never abandons or condemns us when we are suffering in low times.  This is what we need to keep in mind when dark and negative thoughts flood our minds.  As we mature and grow we realize that these moods are not the final state and these thoughts do not define the ultimate reality of who we are.  The more we can hold onto God's truth and his word the sooner we will rise from our despair and the more comfortable and accepting we will feel as we are going through it.

So many successful people have admitted that they were subject to down times of discouragement and doubt. (Picasso, Van Gogh, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill.) 

Amy Grant in her book, Mosaic, writes: 

Whenever I am in a bleak mental state, I think about these people whom I admire and realize that this condition is not unique to me.  

Probably my age and the circumstances of my life have softened the downward spirals for me, but winter is still a struggle every year.  Maybe subconsciously that is part of the reason I've made so much Christmas music - to focus on hope and joy and store up a lot of good thoughts for the dark months ahead.

What I've learned so far is that depression can be, but is not necessarily, about circumstances or about a particular event.  It is physical.  It is hereditary.  It is cyclical.  Its onset is like traveling down a road and suddenly hitting a patch of deep sand, wheels spinning and no visible forward motion.

The good news is, I've learned to recognize it and not be ashamed of it.  I know as surely as it comes, it will go.*

Perhaps, during this darkest time of the year, you are suffering with depression.  Don't be down on yourself.  Remember there is no end to God's faithfulness.  He never changes. The light of his love shines continually as bright as the sun no matter how cloudy your day may seem.  Encourage yourself.  Even if you feel discouraged and sad, put your hope in God.  He will lift you again and restore you to the joy of his presence. 

 

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!

Psalms 42:11 (NLT)

So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord!

Psalms 31:24 (NLT)

Listen to Amy sing Breath of Heaven
http://youtu.be/6RVTZDgcpqM

*Grant, Amy, Mosaic:Pieces of My Life So Far (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp.167-168.

Belonging

My prayer for all of them is that they will be one,

just as you and I are one,

Father – that just as you are in me and I am in you,

so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me. 

John 17:21 (NLT)

One crisis of modern life is a sense of isolation and loneliness.  “Each human being comes into the world alone, travels through life as a separate person,and ultimately dies alone.”^*   Even in a crowd or with friends or family we can feel alone.

Jesus describes his intimate relationship with his father in this way - “you are in me and I am in you.”  It was a complete and total unity.   As we ease drop on his prayer in John 17 we begin to hear that deep longing of his heart that we, too, could experience that intimate sense of belonging that he experienced with his father.  Yes, we do belong. We are no longer lost and wandering alone but have come home to the closeness of a loving and united family.

 

As much as we belong to him, we belong to each other.  Jesus desires that we as his people would be one as he and the father are one.  He continues to teach and train us daily to this end - teaching us to express this unity to each other in tangible ways so that not one of his children would feel on the outside looking in, but would truly sense the closeness that belongs to his intimate circle of friends.

All who are mine belong to you,

and you have given them to me...

John 17:9-10 (NLT)

Holy Father, keep them and care for them – all those you have given me – so that they will be united just as we are.  John 17:11 (NLT)

I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are – I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one. 

Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me.  John 17: 22-23 (NLT)

^*Carter, Michele; excerpt from Abiding Loneliness: An Existential Perspective, Park Ridge Center, September 2000

Jewels

I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit

or a bride with her jewels.

Isaiah 61:10 (NLT)

Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. Isaiah 62:5 (NLT)

When my eye beholds a beautiful, sparking diamond ring adorning someone’s finger I think,  “How precious this one is to someone.”  Jewels are very small things but very valuable, full of special meaning. They are our carefully guarded treasured possessions.

We are Jesus prized possessions, his treasured jewels.  He was willing to sacrifice and pay a high price for us to make us his own. Jesus is very proud of us and so happy to have us as his family.  He rejoices over us.  We are his glory.  All that he has is ours.  He wants to share all of his possessions with us.  He wants us to be with him where he is and to see all of his glory.  All this he wants to bestow on us because we are his prized possessions.

All who are mine belong to you, 

and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory.

John 17:10 (NLT)

 

Father, I want those you have given me

to be with me where I am, 

and to see my glory, 

the glory you have given me

because you loved me before the creation of the world.

John 17:24 (NIV)

Fresh Start

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! 

His mercies never cease. 

Great is his faithfulness; 

his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Lam 3:22-23 (NLT)

His mercies are new every morning. All the mistakes and failures of yesterday are gone, blotted out by the light of the rising sun.  I might tend to hold onto my guilt from the previous days behavior (especially when the same pattern of misbehavior seems to crop up every day), but God doesn't remember.  The generosity of God's love is amazing!  God gives me a fresh start every day - a fresh start with nothing hanging over my head.  This gives me the freedom to go forward in hope.

Then, I remember the verse that says we should not let the sun go down on our anger.  As an imitator of God, I cannot hold onto the grudges and hurts of the previous day.  It's hard when I'm faced with the same offending and irritating behavior every day, but it is my responsibility to release those hurts to God before the sun goes down.  If I don't, it will color my response tomorrow, making me stingy and grudging in my attitude towards others.  If, before the sun goes down, I release and forgive whatever has happened that day, I will be free to love again when the sun comes up allowing the mercy and grace of God's generous love to be exhibited through me as I offer to others that fresh start that God has offered to me. 

How can we release each day, before the sun sets, every negative, hurtful, offending or irritating thing that may have happened to us that day?  I find this hard to do. Do you have any practical or helpful suggestions about how we can accomplish this?

I would love to hear your comments.

And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” 

Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,

for anger gives a foothold to the devil.

Eph 4:26-27 (NLT)

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful,

and endures through every circumstance.

1 Cor 13:7 (NLT)

Then Peter came to him and asked, 

“Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?

Seven times?” 
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!

Matt 18:21-22 (NLT)

Sorrows

Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing,

he is able to help us when we are being tested.
Heb 2:18 (NLT) 

This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses,

for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

  So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

There we will receive his mercy, 

and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Heb 4:15,16 (NLT)

Many of our sorrows in life come not from other people or our outward circumstances but from our own weaknesses and failings.  Others may criticize us and we often become critical of ourselves because we just can't seem to change even though some behavior is causing pain and dysfunction in our lives. 

Jesus is touched with compassion when he sees us in such sorrow and frustration.  He experienced similar feelings and so is able to understand what we go through. 

David Seamands in his book Healing for Damaged Emotions, expresses this so beautifully in the chapter The Wounded Healer.

If He merely understood the fact of our infirmities, that would be good enough.  But I've got better news for you.  He even understands the feeling of our infirmities - not just the cripplings, not just the weakness, not just the emotional hangups and the inner conflicts, but the pain that comes with them.  He understands the frustration, the anxiety, the depression, the hurts, the feelings of abandonment and loneliness and isolation and rejection.  He who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities experiences the whole ghastly gamut of emotions which goes along with our weakness and our cripplings.

We are coming to a Heavenly Father who understands our feelings and invites us to share them with Him.  So we can draw near with confidence unto the throne of grace knowing that we will obtain mercy and find grace in our time of need.  We can come when we need forgiveness and when we feel guilty for our sins.  And we can also come when we are being wracked and tormented by the feelings of our infirmities.

It is good to know that when we bring our failures to him we will not be met with criticism, guilt or shame, but with a friend who sees and feels our tears and will comfort and support us. 

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;

it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
Isaiah 53:4 (NLT)

Serenity

Yesterday, as I was driving to get my new Arizona drivers license, I pulled up behind a car with a license plate that read BSERENE. What a reminder!  I was tired and my mind was slipping because of all the daily pressures and worries.  I needed that reminder to refocus on the positive and re-frame my thinking according to the reality of God's peace.

I was tied up in traffic, but there it was again in front of me just before I turned.  It immediately made me think of the Serenity Prayer. Here we are reminded that God is our source of peace.  It starts with acceptance, taking things as they are.  That's always a good place to start. Then asks for courage and wisdom to change while enjoying each moment and trusting that whatever hardships we face will work for our good as we surrender to his will. What a powerful prayer!  God grant us serenity!

se·ren·i·tyNoun/səˈrenitē/

The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled:

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. --Reinhold Niebuhr

Glory & Honor

 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers,  the moon and the stars you have set in place,  what are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us?  For you made us only a little lower than the heavenly beings and you crowned us with glory and honor.Psalm 8: 3-5 NLT

"Christianity is a lifetime of becoming who you really are." 

Ann Voskamp, aholyexperience.com, Sept. 5, 2011

When we look at the night sky and think of the vastness of all God has created we feel so small and insignificant.  How could the God who created all this care for us?  It is amazing to realize that we are actually the crowning glory of all he has made.  We were made just a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned with glory and honor.  We are infinitely precious and important to God.

Our position of glory and honor is a consequence of our recognition of our proper position under the one who created us.  When we step out from under the authority of our glorious creator we lose our position of glory and honor and become subject to this lower creation resulting in disorder and chaos.  Humans continually fall into the deception that they can be their own god.  (Genesis 3:5). 

Jesus came to restore our proper position by displaying what we were truly created to be.  He honored the father with reverent submission. (Hebrews 5:7) He is our example and as we look to him and live in him we are restored to that position of glory and honor we lost by our own self will.  In Jesus we are fully restored, accepted, and cared for.

My Creator King

by Don Moen

You, who made the mountains and the sea
Measured out the universe and you made me.
Echoes of the voice that called the worlds to be
Reached throughout the ages and now speaks to me.
You're my Creator King.

You, who made the valleys and the skies
Displayed your love on far horizons and before my eyes.
You, who lit the stars and set the dawn in time,
Called them all by name and now You whisper mine.
You're my Creator King.

Chorus
Who am I that You are mindful of me?
Who am I that You set Your love on me?
You're my Creator King.

You, who made the darkness and the light,
Sun and moon to watch the day and guard the night.
The hand that stretched the heavens like a canopy
Reaches down to cover and watch over me.
You're my Creator King.

Listen to the song:

http://youtu.be/2ITMxRfBx-E 

Harmony

Pelicans over Crystal Cove, Newport Coast, CA

 

So let us then definitely aim for and eagerly pursue 

what makes for harmony and for mutual upbuilding,

edification and development of one another.  

Romans 14:19 (AMP)

May God who gives this patience and encouragement,

help you live in complete harmony with each other –

each with the attitude of Christ Jesus toward the other.

Romans 15:5 (NLT)

One of the many things I enjoy about the beach is watching the Pelicans soaring over the water.  Yesterday, a large group hovered over my head for sometime seemingly having a conference to decide who was going to be the leader this time. Then they took off, one out ahead and the others falling into a V behind. 

Watching these creatures of the sky working together in harmony reminds me of the kind of life God has in mind for us. Harmony is created only by each one of us having the attitude of Christ who did not seek to please himself, but bore all of our weaknesses and failings. We, also, are called upon to accept each other with patient endurance.

We are only human and often fall into doubts and fears.  The scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for the fulfillment of his perfect ways, but right now we are faced with an imperfect world and we are imperfect people who need the support and encouragement of others as we deal with all of our shortcomings, faults, weaknesses, doubts and fears.  

Since our natural inclination is to correct or to judge and our patience often runs thin, we must call on him for we cannot manufacture the attitude of Christ in our own strength.  Realizing that only God has enough wisdom and understanding to judge, our job is only to accept and encourage.  It comes only from his life within us.

So accept each other as Christ has accepted you.  Romans15:7 (NLT)

Let each one of us make it a practice to please his neighbor

for his good and for his true welfare,

to edify him, to strengthen him and build him up spiritually.

Romans 15:2 (AMP)