In a few hours our family will celebrate the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. Right now my house is cleaned, food is prepared and all kids are napping (in anticipation of staying up until midnight).
Pilgrim Radio is playing praise songs softly in the background, and I have some time to relax. For me, this is to sit down at the computer and check email and a few blogs. As I looked through my emails from today, this message grabbed my attention ------- A FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes,
The final months of 2008 have seen an avalanche of bad financial news. Many families are struggling and wondering about their future. This does not mean you have to dread 2009, as Nancy explains in the series Looking Back / Looking Forward.
So true. Many people have lost jobs, seen their stock values plummet, or know someone who has. But for Christians, it is a good reminder that our hope is not in the stock market or the next president. Nor is our fear supposed to be as a result of these things. As Nancy quotes further in the message, "anything that causes us to need Him, anything that presses us closer to His heart is, in fact, a blessing. Anything that makes us more conformed into the image of Jesus is a blessing."
Click here to listen or read this message
Phil taught Timothy this song. It brings joy to our hearts to hear him sing this to himself as he goes through the day. We pray that the words of this song are always true in his life ~ and in yours as well.
Lord, You are more precious than silver
Lord, you are more costly than gold
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds
And nothing I desire compares with you.
May this scripture be your New Year's Resolution this year:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Other thought stimulating resources for the new year:
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