New Years Resolutions

                                                      When The Door Slams

So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah do you love Me more then these?" He said to Him, "Yes Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Feed My lambs."                                                                                                    John 21:15

        Jesus has a wonderful way of restoring us when we fail Him! He does not humiliate us. He does not criticize us. He does not ask us to make a resolution to try harder. Rather, He takes us aside and asks us to reaffirm our love for Him.

        Peter miserably failed his Lord when he fled with the other disciples from the Garden of Gethsemane. Later, he publicly denied that he even knew Jesus. Peter must have wondered if he had been capable of being Jesus' disciple when he was unfaithful to Jesus in His most crucial hour.

        Think about this: As you begin a new year, you may be painfully aware that you have failed your Lord in many ways. Perhaps you were not faithful. Perhaps you disobeyed His word to you. Perhaps you denied Him by the way you lived. Jesus will take you aside, as He did Peter. He will not berate you. He will not humiliate you. He will ask you to examine your love for Him. He asked Peter, "Do you love Me?" 

        If your answer, like Peter's is "Yes, Lord," He will reaffirm His will for you. If you truly love Jesus, you will obey Him (John 14::15). Jesus does not need your resolutions, your recommitments, or your promises to try harder this year. If your resolve to obey God last year did not help you to be faithful, it will not make you successful this year. Jesus asks for your love. If you truly love Jesus, your service for Him in the new year will be of the quality that He desires 

        I have not been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have attained it, but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and stretching forward to what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

Ask the Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin.                                    Acknowledge these to the Lord and thank Him for His forgiveness.                                                                                                                                                    Never Rest Ministries