You’re Doing Great
Hey everybody,
Last week was a GREAT start to the New Year at Believers! We had one of the highest attendance days in years and there was so much energy. We started a brand-new series called Creatures of Habit and talked about the habit of “Putting God First.” Specifically, I said that if Jesus wasn’t King OF all, He isn’t King AT all! A King is the ultimate authority and ruler. Jesus invited us to participate in The Kingdom of God and when He was crucified there was a sign placed over him that said, “The King of the Jews.”
So, Jesus was and is a King. As such, He has authority over His Kingdom and its citizens. Those citizens are all of you who have placed your faith in Jesus and have committed to follow Him. If you missed the message, you can watch it here.
Part of putting God first becoming a habit is making some practical choices that reflect that commitment. Things like giving God the first of my month, by calendaring and budgeting my time and my dollars in a way that aligns with Jesus being #1 in my life. Giving God the first of my week, by deciding to engage in church every Sunday this year (whether doing that online with others or in person). Lastly, I talked about giving God the first of my day and talked about the First Fifteen; I introduced a one-year reading plan that will take us through the New Testament. If you missed it, you can find this week’s reading schedule at the bottom of this email. And don’t worry about the days that you haven’t read, start with today’s reading.
We went into a lot more detail in our conversation around this on the Made for Monday’s Podcast. You can find that episode on Spotify, here ( MFM is also available on most streaming platforms) – be sure to like and subscribe to make sure you don’t miss future episodes.
Many of you took next steps at the end of Sunday’s message to commit to some of these ideas.
That was 5 days ago. For some of you, you woke up on Monday and your commitments were immediately challenged by life. Those challenges may have come in the form of sickness, oversleeping for work, or work travel that took you out of your routine and interfered with your desire to follow through on the decisions you made. And so, even though it was only 5 days ago, you already are feeling defeated because you can already think of ways that you have NOT made Jesus #1 this week.
So, what should you do?
Unfortunately, what many people do is give up completely on the commitments that they made. They wanted to do a dry January, but they had a drink, and so now they just resign themselves to drinking every day. Someone made a commitment to not go into any more debt, and they already ran up $200 in new purchases on their credit card, so they just go on a spending binge. That’s a big mistake!
If you missed the mark on one of your commitments, start over TODAY! Forget about the failures of yesterday. Today is a new day. Don’t let yesterday’s disappointments sabotage your potential to do better today or tomorrow. Think about it this way. If last year you never had a First Fifteen and this year you did, but you only did it 2 times this past week, you are doing WAY better than last year! And don’t forget, the goal is not streaks, perfection, or even consistency…the goal is connecting to Jesus and growing in your relationship with Him (John 15:5).
So, nearly two weeks into the new year…you are doing GREAT! Don’t give up. Keep pushing forward. I hope to see you THIS Sunday for another week of Creatures of Habit. And bring a friend with you…church is more fun with friends!
Pastor Jamey
PS Here’s a really helpful article on how to stick to your habits even when life gets crazy. Give it a read. I hope it helps!