Happy New Year

The new life, all things have become old, all things have become new.

How do we approach this new year?

Do we look at it as just another year in God’s waiting room?

Do we see it as just another year the same as last year, just that we are getting older, more aches and pains, maybe some more heartaches,

Or do we see it as a new opportunity to start over, to make some sort of change in our life?

You know we do have a habit of getting in the same ole rut year after year….

Many people make New Year resolutions, hoping to lose weight, exercise  more, eat less, and get into those old clothes that are too tight to wear.

Some make resolutions to do better at their job, or be a better husband, wife or friend.

But no matter what the resolution is, it usually lasts for a short time and we slip right back into our old habits…. It is our nature, we really do not want to change, or we would.

There is one thing we can do that will make an awesome change in our lives,

We come into this time of the year, the beginning in several situations.

First we can enter this year as a born again spirit filled follower of Christ.

Second we can enter this year as a religious person who knows about God, but has not yet experienced a rebirth.

Thirdly we can enter this year as a person who really isn’t much into God at all, but is in a habit of attending church, just for the sake of making ourselves feel we are doing something religious.

Which ever the case, each of us has to make a choice; we have to respond to the message about Jesus Christ.

When Nicodemus came to Jesus and began to ask him something, Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter.

He said that in order for a person to enter the Kingdom of God, that person would have to be born again.

Nic just could not wrap his mind around that statement, he was only thinking about a physical birth and having to reenter his mother’s womb, but Jesus explained it to him simply as flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit. No matter what happens in the flesh, we are born, grow up, grow old and die, that is all it is, and everyone is going to experience that in the physical. It is inevitable. But our spirit is who we really are.

That spirit is born and because of sin is separated from God,

The word tells us in Romans that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And that wages of that sin is death, not a physical one, because we all are going to do that anyway,

But a spiritual death… our spirit is dead, because of sin, and it must be reborn or born again.

So we have to respond to that message…

One, if we are already born again, we need to respond in a way that we will grow closer to Christ this year, that we will serve him in a way we have not yet done.  Or at least serve him more then we have in the past, we cannot simply live in the same way we lived last year, the fact is that if we are not growing spiritually, we are shrinking, we cannot every remain the same.

Two… if we are not born again, we cannot simply say, that was a good message, we have to respond,

Here is what we have to do, we have to become born again, if we ever want to enter into the kingdom of God.

We cannot get there on good works,

We cannot get there because we attend church or are religious, reading the bible, even praying certain prays.

We must respond to the words of Jesus, you must be born again….

We must put off the old and put on the new,

Then we can really experience a Happy New Year.