Embracing a Divine Reset for a Better Life

Instead of resuming our old ways of living, our old lives, God is interested in giving us the opportunity to reset our lives, not to resume our lives, but to reset our lives. What do I mean by that? Instead of going back to your old ways, we have a chance to reboot. We have a chance to refigure, to redefine, to reset our lives at a better level, a better life, better than the good life. [00:01:20]

Eliminate the non-essentials in my life. Now, I have mentioned to you in both previous weeks the physical and the emotional cost of trauma and chronic stress. And remember I said, it's like a battery. If you got a battery and you have one light bulb attached to it, it'll last a long time. If you attach two light bulbs to the battery, it burns out in half the time. [00:05:51]

You need to be more selective in your life, in your attitudes, in your schedule, in your calendar. Now, the Bible specifically tells us three things that we need to eliminate in our lives, and they're the next verses there on your outline. We need to eliminate the sins that hold me back, the activities that waste my energy, and the unhealthy habits. [00:07:36]

Excel at what really matters. That means you stop focusing on the stuff that doesn't matter and you start focusing on the stuff that does matter. You eliminate the non-essentials and you emphasize and you excel at what really matters. Friends, I want to tell you this from personal experience. You don't have to be good at everything to make it in life. [00:13:01]

Managing your time, selection is the name of the game. The secret of an effective life is selection, knowing what matters most and doing that. Managing your time. One of the big differences between successes in life and failures in life, or for that matter, the difference between living a good life and living the better life is that people who live the better life do a better job of using their time. [00:16:23]

Proverbs 17:24 says this, "An intelligent person aims," aims, that's purpose driven, "at wise actions." You work intentionally with your life. "But a fool starts off" how? I can't hear you, how? - [Congregation] In many directions. - In many directions, in many directions. Friends, as your pastor who loves you, the last thing I want you to do is with all the new-found freedom, when all of a sudden all the restaurants are open and everything, all the events are open and everything is open and we're all freed up again and we're not restricted, is to go out and fill your life with a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. [00:19:01]

Embrace the new things that God does. Now, I chose that word embrace intentionally because embrace means more than just agree with it, to grudgingly accept it. To embrace means to be content with it. It means to even love it. You don't embrace things you don't love. So what I'm saying here is you not only accept the new things that are happening in God's world, in God's church, in God's family, in your family, in your life, but you actually learn to love them. [00:23:36]

Life's never going back to the way it was a year ago. I hate to let you down, I hate to tell you that, but it's not going back to the way that it was before COVID. Everything has changed, including you. The past is past. You can't go backwards in life. You can only go forward. And so you can't go back, we can't go backwards. So really what we all have is two choices. [00:26:08]

Expect incremental change. That means little by little, incremental change. And I'm talking about in you, in me. Now, this is the exact opposite of what we normally want. We don't like incremental change. We want rapid change in our lives. We want fast change. You go on a diet, you want rapid results. You want instant transformation. You want the pill that changes you overnight. [00:35:43]

You didn't just create the problem you've got right now overnight. You're not gonna get out of it overnight. You didn't create the mess you're in overnight. You're not gonna get out of it overnight. You didn't develop those bad habits overnight. You're not gonna get rid of them overnight. It's gonna take incremental change. Moving from the good life to the better life. [00:37:23]

God has already decided how He's gonna bless your life. God has already decided your promised land. God has already decided all the really cool, good things God wants to do in the rest of your life. But He says, "I've given them to you, you're just not gonna appropriate them yet 'cause you've got to do a little growing first. You're not ready to handle all the blessing I want to give you. [00:39:08]

So let me ask you a very pointed question, in the post-pandemic world, post-COVID, what are you gonna do when you get all the freedoms that you had before? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna resume the old life? Or are you gonna reset a new life? It's your choice. Now, will you futilely attempt, and I mean futilely attempt, to resume your old life just like it was before the pandemic with no changes at all? [00:45:02]