Happy New Year Mike!
It’s day one of 2019 and I want to be one of the first to tell you, Happy New Year.
This past Sunday, I spoke a message to my church entitled “The top eight things we learned in 2018.” Here are just three of them I’d like to share with you that may encourage you as you start out 2019!
1.There is no traction without the right SOUNDTRACK.
We started off 2018 at my church with a word I believe God gave our body—“Traction.” We explored a variety of ways we gain ground as believers. One prevailing point was that there is no traction without the right SOUNDTRACK. Think about it, we understand soundtrack in the sense of what plays in the background during some of our favorite movies. I mean, where would the movie Rocky 4 be without the soundtrack? Can you hear the music in the background as Rocky is training to beat the Russian? Priceless! The soundtrack influenced the movie as much as much as anything.
The same is true for us. The soundtrack of our hearts influences our lives more than we realize. Our life’s soundtrack usually consists of our internal beliefs about God, ourselves, and our circumstances. For example, If the belief we hear in the background of our hearts is, “You are a failure,” then guess what, achieving success will be nearly impossible. Why? Because our external behavior is guided by our internal beliefs. There simply can be no traction without the right soundtrack.
2. Embracing God’s PERSPECTIVE is key to experiencing God’s PEACE.
One of my anchor verses for 2018 became:
Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
This year I learned that perfect peace is only possible by trusting the Lord and allowing Him to shape Hisperspective into my life. In fact, some of our greatest breakthroughs in the midst of difficult seasons will come in the form of a perspective shift.
Let me give you an example from a time of prayer I had with someone in the church this past year. This individual had thought they had gained ground in a certain area only to experience yet another setback. (Can you relate at all? I can!) As I prayed, I felt like God gave me a word for them. I felt like I should tell them that instead of declaring:
“Here we go again…”
They needed to say…
“Here we grow again…”
The encouragement of the Lord was instead of looking at a recurring struggle with an attitude of despair, look at it as an opportunity for God to continue to show up and help grow you up to even greater maturity and destiny.
I think this was encouraging to them, but it became something I personally would cling to through the remainder of the year.
My simple prayer became, “God, help me to trust you and see things the way you do.” And that simple, yet profound prayer, became a platform to experiencing God’s perfect peace.
3. I need to SEIZE the season of SIFTING.
I went through period of time this past year that the phrase “pressure cooker” would have been an understatement. David’s words in Psalm 139:1-3 started to resonate through me:
Psalm 139: 1-3 You have searched me, Lord and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
I learned that in the midst of walking through pressure, one thing God will go ahead and do is search you and sift you (for your own good.) There are two HUGE benefits to a season of sifting:
- Sifting keeps me from drifting.
Sifting reveals the real me. This isn’t always fun, but necessary, especially in the day and time we are living in. The truth is, as the last days intensify, the greatest temptation will be to drift away from a deep intimacy with God. But when we allow God to sift us, the sifting keeps us from drifting…
1 Peter 1:7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
- Sifting leads to shifting. In fact, there is no shifting without sifting.
The truth is….pressure purifies us, positions us before God’s presence, and ultimately prepares us for the next level of purpose He has for us.
I learned not to despise a season of sifting He allows me to walk through. I can’t exactly say that I am delighting in it quite yet, but I’m not despising either. Ha!
Once again, Happy New Year. I’m honored to be on the journey with you as we launch into 2019!
Mike