Toe sê GOD vir my.../And God said...

A new year’s resolution or a Godly resolution?

As we start a new year, I want to start by giving glory and honour to our Father in Heaven for blessing us with another year. This is a privilege, and I am very grateful for this blessing.

As we enter a new year, we sometimes look at only what went wrong, the struggles and the challenges we had to endure, and we hope that we have a better year ahead. Sometimes we fail to acknowledge what the Lord has done for us in the past year and the goodness that God has bestowed on us.

During the first few days of the new year, we tend to reflect on the past year, and we start making a list of everything we want to achieve and the things we want to do. The world calls this new year’s resolutions.

We end up making a list of things we want to achieve (some realistic and some unrealistic), somethings on the list are things that we did not achieve in the past year, and somethings on the list are new. This list normally ends up being just another list we chase, that fades, and we forget about it.

In Matthew 6:33 we read “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

I want to encourage you today, let us make God a priority in 2025. Let’s start 2025 with not making a worldly new year resolution list but rather a Godly resolutions list.

In Ephesians 5:1-21 God clearly gives us a list of things that we should be striving for in the new year. I have summarized it below. (You can read and meditate on this scripture)

•           Be imitators of God

•           Walk in Love as Christ did.

•           Stay away from sexual immorality, Impurity or greed

•           Let there be thanksgiving.

•           Do not be deceived

•           Walk as Children of light

•           Always discern what is pleasing to the Lord

•           Take no part in unfruitful works of darkness but expose them

•           Awake and hear the Lord’s call, arise from the dead so that Christ can shine on you.

•           Look carefully at how you walk and walk in wisdom.

•           Make the best use of your time

•           Understand the will of the Lord

•           Do not get drunk

•           Be filled with the Spirit and Sing to the Lord with all you heart

•           Always give thanks to the Lord for everything

•           And respect and submit to one another

Let 2025 be a year of achieving spiritual goals and let us grow in God’s image and let’s be where God wants us to be.

Let the Holy Spirit guide us to achieve the will of the Lord in 2025 and God has given us a promise that we are not alone and that He will strengthen us.

•           Philippians 4:13 - “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. “

•           Psalm 46:1 – “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. “

And it is with this strength that we CAN be assured, because it is in His strength where we find courage and not in our own strength.

•           Psalms 28: 7-8 – “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed.”

So, hold on to His words during 2025, spend time with God and as Ephesians 5:1-21 instructs us, lets honour God in 2025 with our thoughts and our actions in body, mind, spirit and soul. Give everything to Him and when we look back in 2026 to 2025, that we have put a smile on God’s face.

A prayer for 2025:

Praise to You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this season. As the dawn breaks on a new year, let us give thanks for all we hold dear: our health, our family and our friends.