December
30, 2009
Column
#1,479
A New Year’s Resolution Worth Keeping
By Mike
McManus
MANDEVILLE, LA – I heard a sermon
before New Year’s at Church of the King suggesting the most profound New
Year’s Resolution I’ve ever heard.
A huge RESTART button hung behind
Pastor David DeGarno as he talked of “Renewing Spiritual Passion…The
Bible says we can have a big Reset: `Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things
have become new,’” he read from 2 Cor. 5:17.
And from Lamentations 3:22-23: “Through
the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail
not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
He suggested a “spiritual discipline of
prayer, fasting and a discipline of daily Bible reading.” The Bible “is
not an out-of-date, culturally irrelevant book, just an historical
account, a rule book, but an inspired true book. It is not a
super-sacred book that we can’t understand.
“It is God’s love letter to us. We can
find out who He is, and who we are, and why we need Him,” said Pastor
Dave.
To understand the Bible’s purpose, he
suggested we look at the last letter of Paul to his protégé, Timothy:
“All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good
work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
He argued that suggests that the Bible
reveals truth which is useful for doctrine, truths we can build our
lives and faith upon. For most people, Scripture reveals that “My life
is a mess. Our ways are not working. Truth contradicts our life, our
pattern of living.”
“Just as an athlete who is injured must
retrain muscles, we must develop new patterns of living. Just as there
are disciplines of getting better at any sport, we must commit to
encounter the Word of God on a daily basis and apply it. You will find
as your mind is renewed the Word will retrain your thought patterns,” he
reasoned.
“Old thoughts like `You’ll never amount
to anything. You’ll never overcome this addiction’ – can be rejected.
The Bible says I’m not a failure, but an over-comer, a new creation. As
we encounter the Word daily, and it changes our thoughts, it makes us
more like Jesus.”
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