The New Year!

The New Year!

What does that bring to mind for you?

     For Lane and myself we always wonder where God is taking us this year. We've been known to spend New Year's Eve in the prayer room at IHOP in Kansas City when possible to be close to God at a time when things seem brand new and the future happening before us!
     This year my goal is to hear God more clearly, to walk more completely in His path.
     So far I've been able to hear 4 messages from different Ministers, they are calling us to a more complete submission to God in this year. 
     I have a lot of concern for people that continue to call their lives their own, and to make their decisions as if they are the Captain of their own ship and they don't choose to submit to God's will or purpose in their lives.
     I used to live like I was my own Captain also, so I understand the thinking process. They believe they can go their own way and then ask God to bless them in the choices they've made, without even asking His counsel before the choice was made.
     In the messages I've heard recently I believe the ones that are plotting their own course are going to be so out of touch with God that even when they realize their need of His direction they'll be so lost in the storm they won't know which way to turn.
     Of course God is always there when called upon, but when we're too lost we don't even realize what a mess we've gotten ourselves in and instead of calling to God for help, we blame Him! That is the mess that concerns me. A self made mess, and then bitterness from the results!
     The messages I've heard bringing God's leading for His people, for the year ahead have a common thread from all 4 Ministers:

1. Walk with passion and zeal, there is no room for a tepid Christian life.
2. Don't depend on your own understanding, depend on the Spirit, pray in the Spirit in all circumstances, on all occasions
3. We are to set ourselves apart, to live a life of integrity and to remove the pollution that we've allowed to creep into our lives that disqualifies us from being carriers of God. Remove wrong thinking, wrong speaking, wrong habits, stop being self-focused.
4. This is only the beginning, we're being matured for the next step...if we don't mature, we will miss the step.

     I have felt a very strong pressure to create new habits that will bring me closer to God, I've been trying to walk closely with Him for quite a while now, but as the verses that Paul shared:
 Philippians 2:12-13  So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; fo  it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure, we need to be doing this with "fear and trembling"!
     I believe that even though we know God loves us, we need to remember "the fear of the Lord". It's time for us to quit being the children that rebelliously do what we want because we know our Father loves us and will forgive us and remember that our Father is our Creator and it should be our sole purpose to please and honor Him. It's time for us to grow up! It's time to walk with steadfastness knowing who we are in God and what He wants us to do, it's time for us to seek His pleasure, not our own.