New Year, New Day

A new year... did anyone else wake up on 1st Jan and think 'this should feel more significant'? The problem is that 1st Jan is just another day, in this case, just another Saturday. The new year produces no more challenge or choice than any other new day. 


The power of a day, TODAY to be exact. Today holds within it unlimited potential, opportunity and decisions which could change your life. Choosing to live, work and love hard. Or choosing to live, work and love easy. Both sets of choices, even picking the middle road, create a future. If you choose TODAY to live well, you create a different tomorrow from what might have been. 


What legacy do you want to leave? What do you want to achieve before you die? You better start making decisions now, or these things will never happen.


Praise God. He is faithful every day, and He will take however much of yourself you choose to give Him TODAY. If you offer Him a measly 10%, He'll take it and make the most of it. If you offer Him 99%, He will take it and make the most of it. 


Bearing in mind God made us, knows us and loves us... shouldn't we offer Him our empty hands every day and ask for His maximisation? Bearing in mind He alone knows what makes us the happiest, most content and most purposeful, shouldn't we give Him our own small and unadventurous life-plans and trust He has a better one? 


Say you work in a dull job. It pays the bills, and it is tolerable. Life ticks by, the weekend comes around, and before you know it, a year has passed and it's 2012. What would happen if in Jan 2011 you gave God your life, job, mortgage repayments or rent... and asked Him to fulfil His will and build His kingdom on earth using 100% of you? Maybe He asks you to quit; maybe He doesn't. Maybe He asks you to continue but asks you to downsize and use your money to help those without food and clothes and homes. Maybe He asks you to continue but make a real effort with the office's difficult person, praying that 2011 may be the year they come to Christ and are transformed... transforming you at the same time. Maybe He does ask you to dramatically ditch your job, home, 'security' and swan off into new directions... is it really that dramatic, or is it the ultimate act of sanity? To trust One more reliable than the economy, to do what He knows will bring you joy and satisfaction? Bettering the world until Christ returns and smiles at you for joining Him in the adventure? 


Choices.


I choose to bow. I choose to do as God prompts (we KNOW when He does, it's a feeling in your stomach, a whisper into your mind, an awareness of something that needs doing) whether that's climbing after £millions or living from nothing, trusting Him for daily bread. Neither is more noble. Only Godliness counts, never a payslip. Sure you can get more stuff, but you can also entirely miss God's BEST soul-satisfying, earth-changing purpose for your life, and then who is rich on their death bed? One who lived without stuff but followed Jesus, choking on the dust from His feet, or one who lived with stuff but kept 100 paces behind Jesus, out of earshot, in case He asked something difficult? Since He is the One we share eternity with, nice to get to know Him now, don't you think? While there is still an earth to save and a Saviour to serve.  


I want my life to count, and to this end, I want to want to watch less DVDs and invest more 'spare' time in knowing and loving Christ and my elusive 'neighbour'. I want to make 2011 full of purpose, joy and depth, and this is through learning about, and experiencing Christ.


He's a tough cookie. People wanted to kill Him, people followed Him then left Him. Those who devoted their lives to the glory of God despised Him. He didn't only address children and hug lepers, He also spoke harsh and confusing words, challenging every root of security. He literally pulled the rug from under feet - removing EVERY (formerly) trustworthy and reliable source of identity, value and purpose. He reduced people to... people, and yet instilled in them a purpose so powerful and mind-blowing that they were elevated to the throne room of heaven.

Oh Jesus. We will never fully know Your mind and Your depths, but we can know You by the Holy Spirit now, TODAY. I'm more scared of not following You and regretting later in life the missed adventure, than I am scared of following You into the unknown where I might be poor, subject to illness and poverty, and without my own family and home. One sacrifice for another - which is bigger? 


2011. 365 days (God willing) to know and love God, to know and love our neighbours, and to choose to respond with Christ's responses in every situation. To love as He loves, to ache where He aches, to pray what He prays. 

Bow down... heart open, hands open... ears ready to hear and courage to say yes...