One young boy asked his father what his new years resolution was, and his father said he was going to do everything possible in the new year to make his mother very happy. The boy asked his mother what hers was and she said, "To do everything possible to make sure your father keeps his resolution."
Why do we make those anyway? We make them because there are areas in our lives we are either unhappy with or areas in our lives we want to be better. They did a survey a few years back and the number one resolution in America was to lose weight.
A wife came into the bathroom to see her husband standing on the scales with his stomach sucked in. She told him that sucking in his stomach wouldn't make in any better. He said it would, because if he didn't pull his stomach in he couldn't read the numbers.
Today, consider what you should leave behind...
#1 Leave it COMPLETELY behind
- We are notorious for asking God for help in dealing with our problems...and then what do we do? Instead of leaving them with Him, we take them back with us as we finish praying.
- Anything in our lives that keep us from fully focusing on the Lord should be left behind.
#2 Leave RESENTMENT behind
- Each of us resent something. We might resent something we have said or done or we might resent what someone else has said and done. But along with resentment comes unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is a very dangerous thing to keep in our lives.
- Now understand...to forgive does not mean the same thing as forget. We cannot erase our memories, but we can erase our resentment.
- Instead of looking at your resentment from the negative side, start looking at it from the positive side. In other words, when you remember those things, as you surely will, look at them as an example of what not to ever feel again.
#3 Leave WORRY behind
- Worries are very much like rocking chars. They give you something to do, but they never take you anywhere while you're doing it. We only worry about two things:
- Things we can change and things we cannot change.
- Why waste time doing something that not only hurts us and never helps us?
- When we worry, it ends up taking over our every thought and it becomes the predominate thought of our lives.
- Yet, it is also worry that causes mental illness, stress, and many other things that destroy our lives.
- Worry has killed more people than hard work ever did. Worry is the cause of fear.
#4 Leave FAILURE behind
- We try so hard to be the best we can be, but we don't always succeed. And it is in those times when we don't succeed, that we get discouraged because we have failed. But what have we failed in? We may not have achieved just what we originally set out to achieve, but we haven't failed.
- The only time you fail is when you don't try to do anything! We need to understand that God has called us to have faith long before He ever called us to achieve. We are called to be in Christ, and as long as we are in Him, we are successful.
PRAYER
- Lord, thank you for a brand new year and a brand new start! During this time of corporate fasting and prayer, I'm asking you to help me focus on the future and release the past. You have a marvelous plan for my life and I'm wide open to receive it in detail. Thank you for keeping watch over my life and for PUSHING me forward toward my destiny. I choose today to leave behind those things that would slow me down. In Jesus' name. Amen.
