| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time” Our Bible verse for today: “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:14 (NIV) Our thought for today: “Receive every day as a gift from God” Over the next few days, I would like to share with you a few points from our New Year’s Day sermon at Oak Hill Baptist Church. If you would like to watch that sermon in its entirety, it’s available on the church website (oakhillbaptist.net). On the homepage just click on the “Listen/Watch” button. I want to encourage you to resolve in 2023 to receive every day as a gift from God. How you begin each new day will determine to a large extent how that day unfolds for you. Every new day is a gift of life from God, and every new day will be an opportunity to experience God’s mercies and blessings. How you think about the day, and your expectations for it, will go a long way towards determining your attitude all throughout the day. It is true that there’s a lot going on in the world and in our lives that can cause us to worry and to be anxious. But we can set the stage for a miserable day for ourselves by simply starting the day with a sour outlook and with the expectation of problems – or we can do the opposite. I read a study one time that found that approximately 80% of the things we worry about never happen. Another 10% do happen, but end up happening good rather than bad. And of the 10% that we worry about, and which do happen and which are bad, they’re usually not as bad as we feared they would be. And yet, we worry about them. We allow those things to give us sour dispositions and negative expectations – often to the point that our sour disposition and negative expectations actually attract bad outcomes to us. It’s a basic law of human nature that we often attract to ourselves the things we expect to happen. So, are God’s promises true or not? Lamentations 3:22-24 says, “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.” Is that true or not? Are God’s mercies new every morning? Does every day hold the potential for blessings? Well then, what’s your attitude going to be? Will you join with the Psalmist and declare, “This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it”? Now there’s a New Year’s resolution for you! I encourage you to resolve to receive every day of 2023 as a gift from God, and then determine that you will rejoice and be glad in it. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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