Removing Weights & Flying High in 2023

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REMOVING WEIGHTS & FLYING HIGH IN 2023**

"Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3.13-14)

Resolution #1 Lose Weight This Year
Every new year gives us the opportunity to leave the mistakes and sins of the past behind us.
Many drag themselves through life from year to year, like prisoners weighed down by a ball and chain of guilt, shame and regret. No one needs to enter the New Year carrying these weights. The redemption of Jesus means ANYONE can be released from the guilt and shame of their past because He took it to the Cross. When we believe this with all our heart, ask for and receive forgiveness, we discover the indescribable joy of salvation. We enter into the realm of God's glory - a dimension of full acceptance by God, Our Loving Father, where we have total access to His love, His grace, Life, blessing and favor.
The most wonderful part of this is that it is a GIFT which God gives us individually and personally, and NOT a reward for effort. It comes not on the basis of our performance but on the basis of His work for us. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2.8)
As we reset for the New Year, let's recover the JOY of our salvation, and make the dimension of God's glory our home - our default place - where we receive and respond to His total love for us. We can enter into the New Year with a lightness in our hearts and free of all weights. Let us fly into the New Year, redeemed, cleansed afresh by the blood of Yeshua, weightless as we are lifted by the law of the Spirit of Life.

Resolution #2 Be Transformed
The universal custom of New Year’s resolutions shows that most people want to restart, change and improve. However, experience also shows that we cannot transform ourselves by resolutions, will-power, disciplines or rituals. The gospel reveals that God Himself will transform us if we receive His grace and life and yield to Him.
As much as we may want to, we cannot change our (sinful) nature no more than the leopard can change it spots. But God can change our nature. He has promised to do just that. He nailed our sinful, inherited, adamic nature to the Cross with Christ and replaces it with His own nature when we lay down our old adamic nature and receive His Spirit. Transformation is completely God’s work. No one performs surgery on himself, but we can allow God to do spiritual surgery on us. He can and will extract the adamic part of our nature and replace it with His own Spirit if we ask Him to.
New Year’s resolutions are based on the illusion that we can change ourselves and remove our destructive habits by effort. When we receive the GIFT of full acceptance and restoration to God's favor, His love and life pour into us and transform us from within. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor 3.18) Let us do the trusting and let Him do the transforming!
"He became what we are so that we could become what He is.
He came to where we are to take us to where He is."

Resolution #3 Receive A New Direction
The beginning of the year is a good time to take spiritual inventory. Am I drifting? Am I driving myself or am I being directed by God's own Spirit? Am I on the way with Jesus, who is the Way, or am I following my own way, the way of the world around me or some religious fashion? Millions are dying from lack of hope, direction or purpose, and find no meaning in life. Jesus says: "I have a job for you!" He has chosen each one of us for good works uniquely designed for us. He is inviting us to become a part of His amazing team that is bringing His love and hope to a confused world. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. He has blessed us so that we can be blessed in His love and so that we can be a blessing to others." (Ephesians 2.10) He gives us the freedom to be different and follow the calling He gives. Only in following His calling can we become what He wants us to be and discover who He made us to be. "Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I WILL MAKE YOU become fishers of men.” (Mark 1.17) The advance of Gods kingdom in our nations stalls when believers refuse to become disciples, and accelerates whenever we surrender ourselves to seek and obey God's ways and plans.
Now is a good time to make a break with the world and its agenda, and give ourselves completely to the plans, purpose and agenda that God has for us. He is inviting us - as He invited His first followers - to take a step from being a mere believer or church member to being His fully committed disciple. In the past we may have sought to coopt God to our agenda. It cannot be done. But now is a good time to surrender our lives, lay them down and discover His far better plan. As the song says: "Earthly things have left me dry, only You can satisfy."

Christianity without wholehearted discipleship cannot survive the onslaught of worldliness and hedonism that blow against our lives in these end times.
Let us allow the Lord make all our plans and watch the Holy Spirit lead us into situations, opportunities, and good works He has prepared for US this year.
Be blessed and be a blessing!