New Year....New Beginnings!!

 

I know I can say for all of us 2020 was a tough year. You probably are thinking it’s a new year, so I want to be a new me, or maybe that is just me. I know for me there is one thing I want to experience and that is to learn how to live peacefully through God. How can I do this? Verse 2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”. In other words, for me to live peacefully I have to allow change to happen in my life in this new year and I need to remove old things that are not allowing me to grow and embrace the new things that will help me to grow. New year new you have a fresh start in your life. You are wiping away the old and becoming into the new. The year 2020 has been a rough year for all of us and countless times I have heard people say over and over I can’t wait for 2020 to be over. Something has to change in 2021, regardless of the blessings and good things we experienced in 2020. We must apply 2 Corinthians 5:17 to our change. The verse is telling us we are new creations through Christ. It is telling us by accepting Christ as our Savior in our hearts conquers all sin that defines us. With Christ in our lives, we are wiped clean of our sins and made new, but when we do fall short and sin we are about to repent and reject its grasp. As we embark on this journey through the new year 2021, we have to embrace Gods word into our lives daily. This will help remove the sin that follows us daily through ourselves and other people’s behaviors. In order to embark on your journey of a new year and new you just recant 2 Corinthians 5:17 “You are made new” walking through his word helping you to live right while being surrounded by sin.

A Prayer for Teachers and Educators during the COVID Crisis

 

Since the children, educators, and teachers are heading back to school. I came across this prayer that I felt would be great, to cover them.

Father,

This is the day You have made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. It doesn’t look like we thought it would look, nor will tomorrow and the days to come likely be executed in the way we expected and prepared for. Help us to see the good in each day. Help us to find reasons to rejoice and ways to be glad. Litter our lives with moments of laughter and lightheartedness, even in these extremely dark and trying times. Birthdays are still to be celebrated each day. The sun keeps coming up, and You remain the same. We are created in Your image, God, to do good and great things to bring glory to Your name. Each one of us, both teacher and student, were created with specific purpose. Help teachers to have confidence in their craft. They were meant to teach, educate, coach, counsel and lead. They are needed, appreciated, and loved. Their work and their efforts are never in vain. When it is hard to see the good, grab our attention, Father. When we are sad and miss school, our normal routine, and our teammates and coaches, encourage our spirits. Sustain us through our very real fear of what is and will happen in our world, God. Remind us we are not alone, even when we feel isolated.

Author: Meg Bucher

Am I Doing God's Plan?

 

I know some of you may have a few uncertain things in your life and you don’t know what is to come. You may be someone who loves to get out and do things at the spur of the moment or more of a quiet mellow person who likes to have some type of plan in place. Have you ever gone down a path you thought God has laid out for you, but later on questioned yourself, “Am I doing the right thing”?

What if I’ve taken the wrong path and it’s not the path God was wanting me to take? Just a little reminder for you to keep in the back of your mind that you are not powerful enough to mess up what God has planned for you. We all have choices that we make but what God has set in motion will soon or later materialize.

We at times forget that we must trust what God has for us. His plan may not come when we want it, but it comes when he feels it is our time. Often times we find ourselves jumping through hoops, going through difficult situations because we may have taken a slight left along our path when it should have been a slight right. But its OK, you will be able to get back on track by turning your attention back to God and following his word. This is when we finally realize we should trust what God has planned for us.  God’s plan may not make any sense to us, this is because we can’t see the plan he has in store for us, but we must trust his plan.  Proverbs 3:5 states, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding”.

Broken Pieces

                                   

1 Peter 5:10 “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strength, settle you” (KJV).

The path we take for our prayers to be answered is harder and even longer sometimes. Our path sometimes includes our past choices and the consequences that come with our choices, along with growth, and through our healing, then our prayers will be answered. BUT GUESS WHAT??? GOD IS WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. God will never leave us. There are somethings we have to go through, but he will always be there to pick up our broken pieces. So, for a little while, we may suffer through our broken pieces, to gain the strength to restore us into whom he wants us to be. I was reading something the other day that stood out to me. It read “There are three key things to remember when you are on your journey getting close to God. We should remember this when we have broken pieces: You are not alone, develop a relationship with God, and believe that God’s word is true”. Now you’re probably saying what does she mean by this? Well, with you are not alone means…YOU are not alone there are others who have broken pieces, although other people's broken pieces are not the same as yours, they too have to suffer through their broken pieces to get where God wants them to be. Developing a relationship with God means just that. We must establish a relationship with God. We may acknowledge who God is, but do we really know WHO God is, not really, not until we begin to study his word, trust that God is working out a plan for us while praying. In addition to all this, we have to remember that God’s word is true. God’s word never changes, he will give us all that we need and help us get through those broken pieces. Psalms 37:4 says, “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (KJV). Studying, trusting, and knowing that God’s word is true will help you through those broken pieces.