A Fresh Start

In preparing for the upcoming new year, I'd like to encourage you (if you haven't done so already) to get out a pad and pen and measure your accomplishments against the assignments God gave you for 2008.

Take a moment to reflect and state why you weren't as successful as you would have liked to be in 2008.

To truly pursue a fresh start in God this year, you may need to take back control of your life beginning with the external forces you have allowed within your personal space.

Identify your time wasters--any activities or persons--that don't add to your life but subtracts the life out of you.

With a renewed mind, practice these steps to achieve a fresh start in 2009:

1. Write the vision and make it plain (Habakkuk 2:2)

It's important to have goals (the vision) but it's more important to understand why (make it plain) you have the goals you do. Sometimes goals aren't obtainable because we have them for the wrong reasons.

Pray and ask God to give you clarity in this area. Are you wasting time pursing goals and dreams that aren't yours but just look attractive to you because they have brought wealth and success to others? Or even worse, are you feeling like your gifts and talents aren't worthy? Like the men in Mathew 25 that God gave the same number of talents...are you burying yours?

2. What gets measured is what gets done.

Select an accountability partner and provide a written update to them on the success of your goals. If your budget allows, hire a business coach to help you get focused and stay balanced. Coaches are like personal trainers in the exercise world. They will give you an honest assessment of yourself and devise a plan that will be as successful as you make it.















3. Be consistent.

Schedule time in your day to accomplish your daily tasks. Although I am what you call a daily to-do list person, I admit that I have days that I have to speak my confession of faith to my flesh:

I am not a procrastinator!
I will complete my assignments on time!

As you begin to seek God more in 2009, you will see that the enemy will try to trump your plans, so you have to be ready. Ready with a counter attack.

Don't Let Your Past Hold You Back

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on. Philippians 3:13-14

One of Satan's strongest weapons against Christians is to bring up our past failures and embarrassments to discourage us and tell us that we can't go on for Christ. The devil wants to pile up the rubbish and ruins from our past to block our progress.

Nehemiah and his fellow Jews who went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city's walls encountered mounds of rubble and other debris from the city's destruction. The fourth chapter of Nehemiah describes the physical rubbish the workers faced, but the principle remains the same in the spiritual world.

The debris they were working around was a reminder of past failures and defeats for Jerusalem.

But Nehemiah was there to claim victory, not moan over the past. And many times we must do as Nehemiah did--stand in the area of previous defeat and claim victory for Christ!

If you get caught up in all of the junk of the past, you'll get weighed down and not move forward.

Don't let the evil one remind you of your failures...

and fail to focus on the blessings of God in your life.

Have you lost confidence today because of failures that still haunt you?

If so, I encourage you to follow Paul's advice and forget about them... and strain forward to what lies ahead!

Don't let the piles of rubble from your past keep you from pressing on for Christ.