A New Day, A Fresh Start, A New Year!

A New Day, A Fresh Start, A New Year!

Tomorrow will be a new day, a fresh start, and a new year! 2016 will hold 12 months, 52 weeks, 366 days (leap year), 8,784 hours, 527,040 minutes, and 31,622,400 seconds! Your heart will beat approximately 42,163,200 times, your lungs will fill with air approximately 8,432,640 times, your eyes will blink approximately 5,270,400 times, you will take approximately 732,000 steps, and you'll speak anywhere from 1,830,000 to 5,490,000 words (depending of if you're a man or woman....  Source: Book, "Men are Pigs, (fortunately women like pork)" lol Jeff Steele, Melbourne, Florida, US) all in 2016! 

If you're like me, that just made me take a step back! Here's a sobering reality...... we had the same amount of each of these in 2015. My questions are these, how many of these were used for the glory of Almighty God? How many were used to fulfill my purpose in Him? How many of these were used for the furtherance of the Gospel? How many of these were simply "WASTED?" 

So often we're guilty of believing that the only time we fulfill the flesh is when we DO something that satisfies it. The problem with that is, we forget that NOT DOING is a decision as well and many times NOT DOING what we're led to do by the Spirit fulfills the lazy, fearful, ashamed flesh that we so earnestly want to leave in the past! I know I'm a new creature and old things are past away but so many of my actions, and non actions alike, seem to resuscitate that old corpse thats out to destroy me! Dead weight really is hard to carry, physically and spiritually!

With every passing year, every success, every failure, and every regret I learn more about who I really am but I find out so much more of who God is! How gracious, how long suffering, how merciful, how patient He is! As much as I feel that I completely destroyed 2015 here I am being granted a new year by this awesome merciful God!  As many heartbeats that I've wasted, after so many words that were spoken in vain yet here comes another opportunity to preach the Word, to speak life into others, to actually make a change in this ugly world!

This past year has been a rollercoaster to say the least. I've burned some bridges, I've started new journey's at the cost of ending others, I've seen change after change, I've experienced joy, heartache, peace, turmoil, success, defeat, gain, and loss! Some were self inflicted, some were not, some were overcame, some were not! Yet through all of my defeats and failures in 2015 there's this overwhelming force that says "press on," "I believe in you," and "it's not over!" Even when I've felt neglected, alone, set aside, unworthy, hopeless, forsaken, and hurt He's still standing there cheering me on, lifting me up, tending my wounds, and through it all, exalting Himself above all things through a vessel as tainted as me! That gives me the motivation to press on, the will to believe, the heart to keep on trying! The saying goes, "there are those who have failed and succeeded and those who have never tried!" I preached the hardest yet most passionate message I've ever preached this past year on William Borden and his testimony of no reserves, no retreats, and no regrets. My year has been filled with reserves, retreats, and regrets but tomorrow, oh tomorrow is a clean slate, a new year, a new day!

So in the coming year I hope you can join me. May we resolve to devote every moment, every heartbeat, every word, every situation to the glorifying, magnifying, and proclaiming of the Grace, the Love, and the Mercy of our God that we love! If we love Him, it's the least that we can do. May you and your family be blessed this coming year!

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