Especially His: New Year's Right

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

New Year's Right

"Sing to the Lord, all the earth, proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.

"For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

"Splendour and majesty are before Him, strength and joy are in His place. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come before Him; worship the Lord in holy array. Tremble before Him, all the earth; indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; and let them say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns.'

Let the sea roar, and all it contains. Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord. For He is coming to judge the earth. O give thanks to the Lord for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting." I Chronicles 16:23-34

Tucked in the two pages of one of my favourite passages is an invitation to a business function. On the back of it, I wrote:

"A wrongdoer is often a person who has left something undone,

not always that he has done something." - Marcus Aurelius

This seemed especially important for me as I start the New Year. Perhaps it will bless your heart as well...nothing like a clean slate!

Some of us have felt so wronged for so long that it's hard to even imagine ourselves on the other end of the pointed stick.

We are so conditioned to the victim's role we have a hard time recognising our own aggression. But many of us play both roles, whether actively or passively, directly or indirectly. We all have apologies to make.

Because we have chronically thought of ourselves as being owed rather than owing apologies, we are not very skillful at asking for forgiveness. The simple words, 'I am sorry. I was wrong,: don't come easily to any of us.

More than others, we may tend to justify our wrongs because of all the wrongs that HAVE been done to us. But it is essential to recovery that we learn to take responsibility when we have hurt others.

By promptly and honestly admitting our mistakes, we exercise healthy humility and knock down another barrier between ourselves and the rest of humanity.

Withheld apologies are unpaid debts. Paying our debts is not a matter of weakness, it is a clear-cut matter of responsibility.

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Intro Statement of Faith

Why "Especially His"? It comes from a closing statement in the WeakDay Devotions that I have been writing nearly every morning since 1999. Each day I close with this:

"Take care with love, especially His"

Although it is shared with many others around the world now, it seems each day's entry is written specifically for me and for what I am experiencing because I am, as the closing says, "especially His".

Over my lifetime I have been writing and teaching Bible-based studies and wanted a way for these teachings to reach a wider audience -- and hopefully be my legacy to a future generation. We all benefit from fellowship and good teaching and motivation that comes through prayer and reading our Bibles!

On this site you will find a variety of Bible-based and Christ-focused materials. My prayer is that they will help you grow and help you as you help others grow.

Modern-day Evangelism

Something amazing I learned as a young follower of Jesus Christ was that most of the efforts of modern day evangelism have little lasting effect, other than exposing an increasing number of people to God's Word. And as it says in Isaiah 55:11:

"So Shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

Yet, many are not ready, have hard hearts, are surrounded by influencing family or peers and they slink away into the warmth and darkness of unexpected despair.

We Need Ways

I do not minimise the value of canned methods or fancy printed tracts or little gimmicks like colourful beads strung on a leather bracelet or origami-folded coloured cards. We all need to have a way to share our faith in a way we are comfortable using.

I myself, was brought to the Cross through a tract called "Peace With God" published by the Billy Grahame Evangelistic Organisation, and I have trained in most of the methodologies for sharing my faith with another. I even wrote one that focuses on how Jesus evangelised and is based on the four Gospels.

But while being discipled under a wonderful Navigator couple (Don and Elaine Lanier) I also learned a statistic that makes so much sense. It goes like this:

"If each one of us, won one person per year to Christ, and we spent that one year discipling them in the basics, every person in the world would hear the Gospel message of Salvation in just thirty-three years."

Earmarked from the Beginning

Our lives are drawn to deciding to or not to follow Jesus from the moment we are conceived. This journey is as unique as our DNA (yes I do know about identical twins).

The journey after we come to understand the grace of the Father is furthermore unique until we die and begin eternity with our heavenly Father.

Statement of Faith

There is more to come, but want you to know just the core basics of my beliefs.

1. I believe God made man in His image and loves him and desires fellowship with him (Genesis 1:26-27, I John 4:10, John 3:16).

2. I believe there is no other way to Eternal Salvation than through knowing I am helpless against my sin nature and choice of sin. (Romans 5:6-8; 6:23).

3. There is nothing I can do to be acceptable in Heaven (Romans 3:20).

4. The only possibility is to accept the freely-offered gift of Jesus Christ paying the price for my sins by His death and resurrection. (I Corinthians 15:3-6; John 14:6).

5. I believe that the gift of Salvation is just that a gift and it is a gift by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9) and because this is a gift of grace, there is nothing I can do to make God love me more than He does once I accepted His salvation and there is nothing I can do to make God love me less.

6. That my salvation is not transitory according to my behaviour and that He holds me firmly in the palm of His hand (John 10:29).

7. That from the moment of Salvation, my life is a personal journey of growth that He has designed just for me (Psalm 139).

8. That the Bible is His Word to help me grow daily. II Timothy 3:16. (The translation I use for all quotes, unless otherwise specified, is The New American Standard Bible, ©The Lockman Foundation.)