Take Hold (A New Years Charge)

He even addresses those who already feel themselves to be mature or even those who have not yet agreed on the subject matter yet and even says to them there at the ending of our reading, he prays that they will. for for several years, always saying to myself, have not fully arrived yet. There is still more to learn. There is still more to glean. There is still more to surrender. There is still more to sacrifice. And until that moment, whenever he gives me my reward in full, there is still something more for me to do. [00:04:57] (50 seconds)  #StillMoreToLearn

So so Paul is already claiming that Jesus has already taken hold of something. Christ Jesus has already taken a hold of Paul. Christ Jesus, if you have proclaimed him as lord and savior of your life, has already taken hold of you. But there is a responsibility on your part, on my part, on our part, and that is to press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. So today, we're talking about taking hold. [00:06:48] (32 seconds)  #PressOnForChrist

I want us to talk about what it means to grab hold of that next bar, to take that next step in our spiritual journey, our spiritual walk of maturity and faith in God and Christ, letting go of ourselves or what we feel we've already accomplished because quite frankly, we there's more to be done. There is still another battle to be fought. There is still another sinner to rescue. There is still another job to do. So my first point is this, letting go of the past. [00:07:39] (34 seconds)  #GrabTheNextBar

That's hard for us to do. It's hard for us to let go of our accomplishments. It's hard for us to let go of our mistakes. No matter how good we wanna go in the direction in this, what good things in our past that are on our ledger or what bad things are in our past or on our ledger. We need to learn to let go of what is behind because today is a new day. Today is a new day. Today is a new challenge. Today is a new point of reference. Today is a new point of surrender. Today, God is calling us to serve him fresh and anew today. [00:09:00] (38 seconds)  #LetGoOfPast

When you consider the apostle Paul, he had a lot in his rearview mirror, persecuting the church, hanging his laurels on his his his studies to become a pharisee. We we read. We know about him ruining the lives of of many new believers in the faith, but it was when Jesus interrupted his life. Those things became his former self, former in the past. Now he was changed. He had been given a reprieve. He had been forgiven, and now he was charged with carrying the gospel. And that to him was all that mattered. [00:12:45] (49 seconds)  #PaulTransformed

For you and for me, whether it was a road to to Damascus, moment, That moment you've heard me call it when you change from BC to AD. When Christ enters your life, what was BC was BC, and we need to treat it as BC. Maybe there's something from your history that has shaped you shaped you graphically, a failed relationship or marriage, an impropriety, losing a job, a conviction, or a judgment of some sort. Maybe it's something that's in your former life before you knew Christ. Maybe it was something that's part of your life after coming to Christ. [00:13:35] (52 seconds)  #BCtoADLife

``a calling as he's learning to make Jesus lord over his life. This is the same calling that you and I have to make him lord of our life. We talk so easily about the savior part, but it's the lord part that most of us wrestle with. Allowing Jesus to have that first place, to have that prominent place in our life where he gets to dictate to us, where his word says to us, where his command tells us how we should respond, In every every area of our life, our struggle is in that. [00:20:52] (40 seconds)  #MakeJesusLord

To have faith that God has a plan, that his plan is greater than the plan I could have, that God's plan is best, faith that we're here for a purpose, that I'm not here by accident. You may have gotten he gotten on this planet by accident of someone's making, but the lord has a purpose for you. Faith that your purpose has eternal ramifications, that you're not here just to make it through another day, to just be here for sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years, to be able to have a good living, to have a family of some sort. No. Your your life has eternal ramifications. [00:21:31] (42 seconds)  #EternalPurpose