Hello Everyone,

With Jan. 1st just around the corner, many people are thinking about New Year’s resolutions.
An article a couple of years ago listed the top 5 New Year’s Resolutions:
#5: stop smoking

#4: make more money,
#3: improve relationships
#2: exercise more
#1 most popular New Years resolution… losing weight.

All these resolutions are saying one thing: I want to be different than I am.

I want to gain control of an area of my life and, if I could just get control of this one part of my life… I could be truly happy. I could be a new person.

The problem, of course with New Year’s resolutions… they are rarely effective. Somewhere along the line, our determination to keep those resolutions gets buried under time and our own lack of will power.

Now Jesus has something to say about change - about becoming new inside.
Jesus said: “Behold, I make all things new….” Revelation 21:5

And Paul agreed with that “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

What the Bible teaches us is: Jesus gives us the power to change.
The power to become a new creation AND the power to change begins when we first become Christians.

Look with me at Romans 5:6 –
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still POWERLESS, Christ died for the ungodly.”

What does Paul mean – we were powerless?
Before we became Christians, didn’t we have the power and the inner strength to change and improve our lives???
Well… yeah!

The problem was… all of the improvements we made to our lives were like putting new windows and doors on a rundown house. The improvements were great ideas… but they didn’t increase the value of who we were.

When Jesus saved us… He didn’t want to rearrange the furniture of our lives and repaint the walls… No! When Jesus saved us, He wanted to start from scratch.

I read about a man who was selling an old warehouse. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Gangs had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and thrown trash everywhere.
As he showed a prospective buyer the property, he took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.
The buyer smiled and said “Forget about the repairs. When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.

Oh How HE Loves Us!

Pastor Phil