Resolve

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Today we meet together for the last time in the year of our Lord, 2013.

Some of you will remember 2013 with great fondness as the year:

·        you graduated

·        met that special someone

·        got married

·        landed that great job

·        built your dream home

·        took the trip of a lifetime

·        retired

Others will remember 2013 with sadness … it will always be the year you:

·        wish had never happened

·        got laid off

·        separated from your spouse or filed for divorce

·        lost your house, job, girlfriend or your money

·        made that stupid mistake

·        experienced the death of someone you love

Still there are others who will not remember 2013 much at all – it just didn’t make that much difference to you – life has just kept going on as expected, nothing new.

Without regard as to what you think about 2013 or how it has treated you, 2013 is almost over. On Tuesday night at midnight the calendar will roll over to a New Year once again and off we will all go on another adventure.

This New Year thing is not just something some man or group of people thought up. Each New Year is a gift from God. And God expects us to pay attention to this gift and use it to our very best advantage.

So as we approach the end of 2013 and ready ourselves for a New Year I want to suggest 3 New Year Resolutions we might consider. They concern:

  

1.   Our Family

2.   Our Finances

3.   Our Future

First our Family

·        I want to remind us one more time before we close this year that:

When it is all said and done, the only thing God will have left from all of His hard work and the sacrifice of His only Son, is family … Family Matters!

o   Our Biological Family

o   Our Adopted Family

o   Our Church Family

Genesis 7:1  When everything was ready, the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous.”

Hebrews 11:7  It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before.

In Acts 10 Cornelius and his whole family were gloriously saved as a direct result of his sincere commitment to please God.

Proverbs 12:7  The wicked die and disappear, but the family of the godly stands firm.

Next our Finances

·        What we do with what we have reveals who we are and what we believe.

·        Money Matters … If you don’t believe it just try living without it.

·        Money however, wants to be your master – don’t fall in love with it

Matthew 6:24  “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

Malachi 3

10  “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.

11  "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," Says the LORD of hosts.”

Proverbs 3:9  Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.

Finally our Future

2 Corinthians 5

1 ¶  For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.

2  We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.

3  For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.

4  While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.

5  God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

6  So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.

7  For we live by believing and not by seeing.

8  Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.

9  So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him.

As we leave 2013 and embrace another New Year, resolve to:

·        Live a godly life for the sake of your Family.

·        Honor the Lord with the firstfruits of all your increase.

·        Have hope in a future that is out of this world.