New Year Offering

You read right…let’s quit setting ourselves up for failure and exhausting ourselves trying to be perfect. This exercising every day, reading the Bible everyday, etc. The likelihood of us radically changing our lifestyle overnight is slim to none. Its performance based and self reliant… And God is not about either of those things, that would be the enemy.

Jesus tells us the most important commandments are to love the Lord your God and to love others. Regarding God, He says…with ALL heart, ALL your soul and ALL your mind. This is a picture of seeking Him first and in that comes surrender. With surrender comes change of heart and change of mind, transformation. Lasting transformation, from the inside out. This is what He desires. This is the only means to lasting joy, peace and contentment. It’s not even something we can do on our own. It’s done by Him. Our job is to be willing, to make an offering of ourselves and our lives.

I want to encourage you to consider a new year offering. Consider a couple areas of your life you long to be refined, “better”. Ponder the probably countless times you have tried and failed in your own efforts to achieve the results you want. Isn’t it exhausting? Defeating? Discouraging? Instead of resolving to “do better” , let’s offer to lay it down. Resolve to lay it at His feet as an offering, asking Him to have His way. He can do far more, exceedingly abundantly more in fact, with our surrender than we could ever achieve on our own. His definition of success looks very different from ours. He never asked for our performance and perfection, HE is perfection. He asked for our surrender, our heart, our mind, our soul…and our love for Him and for others. His will, not our own.

One final thought, as we prepare to bring in a new year, remember He offers new mercies every single day. New beginnings and endless second chances all the while showering us with crazy grace and boundless love. That’s worth celebrating everyday!!

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