Many do not do New Year's resolutions, and I used to not participate either. However, I have decided that this year will be a year when I do; after all, we serve a God of new beginnings, fresh starts, new mercies...
So, I will ring in the New Year, 2010, a perfect "10", ("We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." - Colossians 1:28-29) with the following resolutions:
1. that I will not go one day without spending alone time with Him
2. that I will not go one day without spending time in His Word
3. that I will not go one day without praying for opportunities to witness
4. that I will not go one day without sharing the Good News with someone
5. that I will not go one day without telling my family I love them
6. that I will not go one day without confessing my sin before the Father
7. that I will not go one day without contacting someone else to thank them
8. that I will not go one day without paying someone a compliment
9. that I will not go one day without memorizing Scripture
10. that I will not go one day without living it to the fullest
This is my New Year's resolution, impossible for man, but not impossible with God!
Blessings to ALL of you this New Year!
Randy
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
"Return to Me..."
With all that is going on in America today...
- economic uncertainty
- the housing crisis
- the healthcare debacle
- celebrity and political scandals
- broken families
- continual depletion of moral influence on the internet, in the movies, on the television, in the music industry, etc.
- increasing hostility toward the Christian faith
- declining attendance in evangelical churches
It is no wonder that we are in a mess! So, do we throw up our hands and say, "It is what it is"? Or, do we try to find the answers in our government leaders, our school administration, our family? Or, do we drown our stress in the next drink, or smoke, or other object of habit?
OR...we could turn to God's Word. In Amos (which I just completed in my 'Read the Bible in a Year'), God said, "I gave you empty stomachs...yet you have not returned to me...I witheld rain from you...yet your have not returned to me...Locusts devoured your crops...yet you have not returned to me...You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me." (Amos 4:6-11)
God's admonition for his children 2700 years ago through that prophet is appropriate for us in America in 2009...we need to return to God. We need to do it individually, within the church, and within our communities.
How are you building community? How are you making yourself available to be used by God in His kingdom? Are you investing and inviting into the lives of others?
Make 2010 a year we all RETURN TO THE LORD!
Randy
- economic uncertainty
- the housing crisis
- the healthcare debacle
- celebrity and political scandals
- broken families
- continual depletion of moral influence on the internet, in the movies, on the television, in the music industry, etc.
- increasing hostility toward the Christian faith
- declining attendance in evangelical churches
It is no wonder that we are in a mess! So, do we throw up our hands and say, "It is what it is"? Or, do we try to find the answers in our government leaders, our school administration, our family? Or, do we drown our stress in the next drink, or smoke, or other object of habit?
OR...we could turn to God's Word. In Amos (which I just completed in my 'Read the Bible in a Year'), God said, "I gave you empty stomachs...yet you have not returned to me...I witheld rain from you...yet your have not returned to me...Locusts devoured your crops...yet you have not returned to me...You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me." (Amos 4:6-11)
God's admonition for his children 2700 years ago through that prophet is appropriate for us in America in 2009...we need to return to God. We need to do it individually, within the church, and within our communities.
How are you building community? How are you making yourself available to be used by God in His kingdom? Are you investing and inviting into the lives of others?
Make 2010 a year we all RETURN TO THE LORD!
Randy
Friday, December 4, 2009
Global Warming?
The Christian should not shy away from the debate. In fact, God is the First Commander when it comes to taking care of our planet. The Bible says that "God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and care for it." The Hebrew words for "work" and "care" literally mean to dress, cultivate, tame and preserve all the plants, trees, water and air that God has apportioned for the perfect conditions He had established from the beginning. So, before I go to the next paragraph, I want to make sure you hear me when I say that God has commanded us to take care of our planet and so we must obey. It is the very core of the stewardship principle for every Christian.
As you know, the global warming debate has been "heated" for some time now. I remember a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago who made a very bold statement in response to the science community's cry for immediate action. He, himself a scientist and a Christian, said, "How arrogant of us [mankind] to think that anything we do will have such a changing effect on the universe!"
And then I read just this week an article in the USA Today newspaper (Tuesday, December 1, page 23A), entitled "Groupthink and the global warming industry." The author reports that computer hackers broke into the Climatic Research Unit in England. The CRU provides much of the data that has been used by global warming advocates to push their agendas.
Well, according to the article, a "long string of email exchanges" discuss "how to manipulate the data they want to show the world, and how to hide the often flawed data they don't. In one exchange, they discuss the "trick" of how to "hide the decline" in global temperatures since the 1960's." This is quite the opposite of what we have been hearing!
The article goes on to explain that this global warming scientific community pushes out those who have dissenting opinions, and even alleges that the Global Warming agenda is driven by the desire for billions and billions of dollars of funding! In fact, the U.S. is committing TRILLIONS to "fighting climate change."
Whatever your position on this topic, I conclude with this statement... Mankind's discoveries and opinions will never render the Word of God of no effect!
Randy
As you know, the global warming debate has been "heated" for some time now. I remember a conversation I had with a friend a few years ago who made a very bold statement in response to the science community's cry for immediate action. He, himself a scientist and a Christian, said, "How arrogant of us [mankind] to think that anything we do will have such a changing effect on the universe!"
And then I read just this week an article in the USA Today newspaper (Tuesday, December 1, page 23A), entitled "Groupthink and the global warming industry." The author reports that computer hackers broke into the Climatic Research Unit in England. The CRU provides much of the data that has been used by global warming advocates to push their agendas.
Well, according to the article, a "long string of email exchanges" discuss "how to manipulate the data they want to show the world, and how to hide the often flawed data they don't. In one exchange, they discuss the "trick" of how to "hide the decline" in global temperatures since the 1960's." This is quite the opposite of what we have been hearing!
The article goes on to explain that this global warming scientific community pushes out those who have dissenting opinions, and even alleges that the Global Warming agenda is driven by the desire for billions and billions of dollars of funding! In fact, the U.S. is committing TRILLIONS to "fighting climate change."
Whatever your position on this topic, I conclude with this statement... Mankind's discoveries and opinions will never render the Word of God of no effect!
Randy
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