by David Scott Robertson
How many of you reading this would like for the year 2005 to be the best year of your life? How would you like to surpass merely SURVIVING the year? Survival is good. Nearly 150,000 (so far) victims of the terrible tsunami in Southeast Asia weren't even able to accomplish this feat last year (through no fault of their own).
For us in America, surviving 2005 means that at the end of the year you were not only able to accomplish respiration, digestion, and circulation successfully for another twelve months, but you were also able to avoid a natural catastrophe or freak accident. That's great, but how many of you like me have set your sights for 2005 beyond mere survival?
How would you like to surpass even being SUCCESSFUL in 2005? Being successful means getting a few "wins under your belt" throughout the year. Maybe you've set your sights on changing careers, or obtaining a promotion and earning a higher wage. Perhaps your goals include getting on a budget and beginning a savings account, or starting to exercise and eat right and lose 15 pounds to improve the quality of your life. Maybe in 2005 you want to go back to school and learn a skill, a trade, or finish your degree. Once again, that's all good, but is worldly success - academically or economically - really all there is to life?
How would you like to stretch past survival and past success all the way to actually making 2005 the most SIGNIFICANT year in the history of you? Do you believe that this is possible? What if something bad happens? What if you get sick? What if you go to the doctor and he says the "C" word? What then? What if you get fired? What if you total the car in a ditch? What if somebody you love dies? Does that automatically disqualify 2005 from being the best year?
Not necessarily. You see, it's not what happens TO YOU, but what happens IN YOU that counts. A significant life is an inside job. It's getting a winning attitude inside you that comes through faith in God who is bigger and stronger and wiser than any obstacle you and I will face in the New Year.
I believe that we individually play a big role in whether or not 2005 is going to be best year of our lives. We've got to be serious enough to make a commitment. A commitment is when you give your word that you're going to do something and you do it. In this thought today, I'm going to challenge you to make 7 commitments to GOD and YOURSELF in order to assure your victory in the New Year.
COMMITMENT #1: I WILL DO THE SPIRITUAL BASICS WELL
For years I've been saying that "living the Christian life rarely goes beyond doing the basics well." Interview any respected and stable Christian and you will find three basic but common denominators that I encourage you to enfold into your own daily routine:
(1) I WILL READ MY BIBLE FROM COVER-TO-COVER IN 2005 - I recommend using the One-Year Bible format available at any Christian bookstore.
(2) I WILL HAVE A DAILY PRAYER TIME - Give the "first-fruits" of every day in '05 to the Lord. Make time to talk to Him in prayer and spend a few moments each day listening.
(3) I WILL WORSHIP GOD DAILY - Get a worship CD or tape and listen to it until you can sing the words to each song by heart. Then get another CD or tape and repeat the process. Just like "burning a CD" on your home PC, you need to burn worship songs onto the tablet of your heart so that you can recall them from memory. Worship is a weapon and powerful spiritual warfare.
COMMITMENT #2: I WILL GET AND STAY PURE
"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14).
How serious is God about this purity thing? Well, according to the above scripture, without it you won't even make it to heaven. Let me make a statement: There will be no ongoing spiritual power in your life without purity. God is not going to dispense miracle-working power to lukewarm believers.
Personal holiness is not an impossible standard. When the Bible calls something holy, it means it has been "set apart for God's use." It is reserved, consecrated, dedicated to God exclusively. Is that something you desire?
To get pure, repent of known sin. Ask God to expose sinful tendencies in you. Examine your thought life. Avoid sexual immorality. Make personal holiness and sexual purity a priority in your life in 2005.
If I were king, I would require every married man in my kingdom to read the book "Every Man's Battle" by Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. I would require every single man in my kingdom to read "Every Young Man's Battle." These books help men win the war for their purity in a sexually-charged society. "Every Woman's Battle" and "Every Young Woman's Battle" assist women in the same pursuit of sexual purity.
Why is this important? Because Internet porn is the #1 addiction in the United States of America. Because the divorce rate in the church and in the world are no different. Because sexually active church-going singles fill our churches in epidemic proportions. Few things short-circuit God's plan for your life faster than sexual impurity. The Ten Commandments condemned adultery, but Jesus took it a step further in the New Testament:
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
The very (controversial) subjects of masturbation and "how far can a Christian go?" are robbing Christians of discernment and disqualifying many from the Christian race. A moral failure is not easily overcome. God's standard for purity is plain:
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people" (Ephesians 5:3).
COMMITMENT #3: I WILL CONNECT WITH GOD'S PEOPLE
Don't connect with just anybody, connect with God's people who will "spur you on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). If you are a Christian, your best friend should not be an unbeliever. Establish and fiercely guard strong boundaries.
Why so dogmatic on this? Because God will not be mocked, "…Bad company corrupts good character" (1 Corinthians 15:33).
Be faithful to attend church services. Get in a small group. Get a prayer / accountability partner whom you give permission to ask you the hard questions.
I assure you that all the Christian men who had an affair in 2004 and all the Christian women who caved into temptation in 2004 did not make and keep these first 3 commitments that I've described thus far.
If you don't want to lose spiritual ground in this New Year, then you must make a commitment to stay connected to God's people, the church, the family of God, the community of believers.
COMMITMENT #4: I WILL WIN SOULS AND MAKE DISCIPLES
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…And lo, I will be with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).
By making a decision to join God in His work of seeking and saving those who are lost you automatically have positioned yourself in the center of God's #1 priority for mankind. God is "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9), but that all should come to repentance. And guess who He wants to enlist to fulfill this Great Commission? You. Accept the challenge and there's a great reward for you on the Day of Judgment; neglect it and suffer loss.
COMMITMENT #5: I WILL CONSECRATE EVERYTHING I HAVE TO GOD
This commitment is key. It's a major expression of your faith and trust in God to "let go and let God have His way" with all the variables and people that make up your life and lifestyle.
I implore you to completely give your marriage, your kids, your relationships, your job, your money, your time, your goals, hopes, and dreams to God. Lay them on the altar and echo Jesus' God-pleasing, world-changing profession: "not my will, but yours be done" (Matthew 26:42).
There is nothing you and I have and enjoy that did not come directly or indirectly from the hand of God. Our possessions are stewardship responsibilities - from our cars to our kids - for God to monitor how wisely we use these resources to see how He will use us in eternity.
COMMITMENT #6: I WILL RISE ABOVE THE LEVEL OF MEDIOCRITY
I am passionate about what I'm about to say to you on this point. I hate mediocrity with a perfect hatred and count it my enemy! I hate normal and usual and boring routine that sucks the adventure out of life!
God didn't make you and me to be turkeys scratching dirt but the more appropriate metaphor is majestic eagles fashioned to soar on the thermals and see things no turkey will ever see! I want to encourage you to live life on the edge - to push the envelope of your experience with God!
Live an expanded life. Like Jabez ask and receive from God an enlarged spiritual territory. Do that thing that God has been nudging you to do but you've been too chicken to do. Quit holding back in public and private worship for fear of looking stupid.
Rising above the level of mediocrity is removing whatever limitations that have intimidated the daylights out of you and tethered you like a hot air balloon on a rope and kept you from soaring to new heights in God.
Are you always playing it safe when it comes to the things of God? Are you too timid and shy to dare to believe God for more that you're currently experiencing? I've heard it said that "it takes guts to get out of the ruts." A rut is nothing more than a grave with both ends kicked out. Good, Christian people who would never consider commiting suicide will nevertheless live far below their privileges and fritter away their goal-less, aim-less lives one meaningless day at a time.
Don't let it happen to you! Allow the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and direct you into hundreds of opportunities this year to really live an expanded life that is anything but mediocre.
COMMITMENT #7: I WILL LOOK FOR JESUS TO RETURN IN 2005
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
Jesus did not return in 2004, perhaps 2005. It's possible. The Rapture of the Church is a biblical fact. You may not understand it or you may not have heard many sermons preached on the subject at your church, but it nevertheless is an event on God's prophetic time clock.
This same Jesus who came to earth the first time as the Suffering Savior will one day return as THE Conquering King of kings and Lord of lords!
There are many compelling signs of Christ's return to this earth as prophesied in the Bible. I believe the catastrophe of the 9.0 undersea earthquake and subsequent tidal waves which massacured Sumatra, India, Indonesia, and other nations is one of those signs.
Luke 21:25 reveals that in the last days prior to Jesus' return: "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea." Are the nations not in anguish at this very hour at the roaring and tossing of the sea?
Plan like He's not coming back in your lifetime, but live like He's coming back today!
My friends, as we approach a New Year, we need to have tucked away in our hearts an expectancy that we will live to see the coming of the Lord and an urgency to get about the Father's business of winnings souls and making disciples.
DSR
1/3/05