Aligning Ourselves with God

Your words are a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).

Blessings to each one of you as you align yourself more closely with God going into 2025. God is ready and waiting for you to strategically follow Him as He leads you on His road to righteousness. Are you ready to allow Him to examine your heart and test your anxious thoughts? Are you preparing for a testing of your faith?

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life (Psalm 139:23-24).

Let’s begin the New Year with an acute awareness and attention to how we look at things. Do we see things from a heavenly perspective or an earthly view? This will require dirtying our knees and uncluttering our spiritual lens for His Godly vision. Indentations in the carpet smooth the rough spots in our hearts. The Word is a guiding light giving directions, navigating situations, and leading us down the right roads. Following God’s directions is contrary to our earthy nature and will require steadfast discipline and commitment.

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father but are from this world (1 John 2:16).

God’s Word has not changed. His Word stands firm from generation to generation. The world certainly has changed and continues to drift further away from God and His Word. Which way are you going?

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

“I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6).

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

There are a lot of distractions in the world, what are you focused on? Does it bring peace or turmoil to your heart and mind? Are you easily irritated, feel resentment and jealousy more often than you like to admit, or are you just plain angry and bitter about your life? Does your today keep crawling back into the crumbling remnants of your past, stealing your todays and tomorrows? The solution is not the world, it’s His Word!

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2).

Today is trash day! Time to take out the trash and detoxify our thoughts. Time to focus on pleasing God and not people! It is impossible to please everyone or even most people. It is spiritually demoralizing to tiptoe around family and your circle of friends wondering when the wind will change direction and blow down your house. Or worse yet, trying to keep peace by going along with others who are living in direct opposition with the Word of God. Hugging cacti will eventually make you cry! We were never meant to continually try to please people but were divinely designed to please God and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10).

For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

Are you starting a new season or living as a rerun? In other words, are you growing up in the ways of the Lord or still a baby believer?

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).

Instead of spinning our wheels, stuck in the sludge of past sins, we must repent and submit ourselves to do the will of our Father in heaven. Shouldn’t we be humbling ourselves before God and allowing Him to mold and shape us? Does our family name, title, job, and ministry define us? Are we walking in humility, or in pride? Or are we allowing God to define our identity through Christ Jesus?

We can make our own plans,
But the Lord gives the right answer.
People may be pure in their own eyes,
But the Lord examines their motives.
Commit your actions to the Lord,
And your plans will succeed.
The Lord has made everything for his own purposes,
Even the wicked for a day of disaster.
The Lord detests the proud;
They will surely be punished.
Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin.
By fearing the Lord, people avoid evil.
When people’s lives please the Lord,
Even their enemies are at peace with them.
(Proverbs 16:1-7)

I bless you with a hunger for His Holiness in knowing who you are in Christ Jesus. You are the head and not the tail.  You are more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus. You are chosen and dearly loved by your Father. You are adopted into His family of love and destined to do greater things in this world.

You are not afraid because God is with you every step of every day in 2025. To God be the glory for a New Year of growth! Growing out of our old ways and into His new ways!