| It’s unbelievable how the first week of 2024 has already slipped by and I feel like I am already behind! To be honest, many times it’s a struggle to write these emails. It’s a challenge because the things on my heart are the lessons I am right in the middle of learning. They are the truths that are gentle rebukes and quiet encouragement from God’s Word that keep me on my journey…I am far from having arrived and even farther from perfect. I write because it helps me. Writing challenges me to think back and reflect on God’s work in my heart. My hope and prayer is that it somehow encourages you. I heard a message by Adrian Rogers a week ago that was so challenging. This particular key point was very convicting and has replayed in my mind many times. I thought of sharing the entire message, but for time’s sake, I am just going to share his third point on “How to Maintain a Life of Victory.” Pastor Rogers shared how Joshua’s famous “farewell” address in Joshua 24:1-16 has 4 Keys for the Christian to maintain a life of victory. The third point was simple: To maintain a life of victory there must be Continual Repentance In vs 14 Joshua said, “Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.” The idea of putting away a false god might be foreign to us, but how many times have I risen in my heart and loved myself more than God? How many times have I put material possessions above others? Or what about the times that I have trusted in man’s ways or thinking versus God’s? The fact that continual repentance is a necessary part of a Christian’s life is so true. The writer of Hebrews confirmed this in 12:1, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” I am starting out this year asking God to show me what comes between my relationship with Him. How am I living for myself and what things do I love more than God? This thought is not to discourage us but rather to give us the courage, to be honest and ask the Lord to search us so that we can be drawn closer to Him. |
| Be encouraged. Chad |
