2011 is here!

Happy New Year!


With each new year, we hope for better, it's another chance for change, and new beginnings...and praise the Lord that we have opportunities to ask for forgiveness and realize where we've often strayed and gone wrong.  If we've been in a valley for a while, we can cry out to God and pray for reprieve, and if we've been on the mountain-top, He has been exceedingly good, and we long to stay there longer.  We can rejoice in both because God is in control and trustworthy, that's part of who He is.


And as I reflect on how the Lord has been working in my life, it's important to think about the familiar passage in John 15:2 - "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit." 


J.C. Ryle says this: "God will often increase the holiness of true Christians by His providential dealings with them...just as the vinedresser prunes and cuts back the branches of a fruitful vine, so does God purify and sanctify believers by the circumstances in life in which He places them." 


I like that...life isn't about fairness, comfort, or "happiness" in the sense that it should revolve around us and what we most desire and want to fuel our ill-begotten and sinful tendencies.  Brothers and sisters, we were bought at a price and the least we can do is to surrender our lives daily to God as living sacrifices to Him.  


Instead, God is kind to include us in His work; He is molding us, pruning us, so that we can produce more fruit, be stretched in ways that make us my like Christ...so we can minister to others better.


New Year's Day is a great time to think deeply about our spiritual conditions, to revisit and look through our priorities (how we spend our time, money, and other resources), kinda in the same way that I have looked through and cleaned out my actual closets recently, and pray that the Lord will be first in our hearts and minds, that He is affecting our daily living and the choices that we're making.


I'm excited about the year to come, because I'm enjoying all that the Lord has graciously provided, and how He's patient to work with me, even though I am so weak and imperfect.


May we be mindful and intentional in the ways we can serve Him excellently, moreso in 2011 than ever before!


Grace and peace to you.