Renew Your Faith this New Year

A Few Minutes with God

Renew Your Faith This New Year~ Episode 211(replay)

It is time to renew your faith in God. Today. There are so many things we renew but often our faith is not one of those things that we think about in that way. In this podcast, we will discuss ways to recharge your faith and how to do this in a way that makes sense for your life.

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When we renew things such as our auto, health or life insurance, it causes us to pause in our lives to do something that is sometimes painful. Shopping for insurance is no fun. What about our faith? Does your faith need renewal or a recharge? When we stop and look at our faith we may see places that need shoring up or other places where we spend much time but maybe do not see as much fruit in the way of change.

Many times we have not matured into our faith. Our years move on but our faith remains stagnant. I can see the evidence of this when I go into a church and see few people in attendance. Sure, you can watch many different services online, but it is different than participating in purpose, especially if there is no physical reason that you can’t. And, on the other hand just because you go to church doesn’t mean you believe. It can be an obligation you fulfill or you go to make someone else happy.

We go and we worship because it is one of the commandments of God, “Keep Holy the Sabbath,” and the wisdom of God trumps anything else, or it should.

In Christian homes, a child may believe because of their parents, and their faith is their parent’s faith. Faith is a personal decision, it is a fundamental option to choose God, follow God, and live a life that is holy. What does this mean to you?

Take a look at your daily walk with the Lord and ask yourself the following:

1. Do you wake up praising God or in some way thinking about the Lord?
2. Do you pray?
3. Do you spend time in God’s Word, at church or with the Bible, or another app?
4. Do you spend time in quiet with God?
5. Do you journal or are you in a Bible study?

If you find yourself falling a bit short, don’t worry. We can look back to see where we want to improve, but then move forward in how we want our lives to look. All of us want joy, peace, and love in our lives, and these come directly from the source of all love, and that is God. Renewing our faith means renewing our dedication to doing God’s will.

Renewing Your Faith ~ A New Beginning

Where do we begin? With a profession of faith. We can start with a prayer such as the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed, but I would invite you to take it a step further. Write the Lord your own love letter, a pledge to love, honor, and follow Him. It can look something like this:

“I praise you and I thank you my Lord for all you have done in my life. I want to dedicate my life to you in a new way, in a deeper way, and in a way that is pleasing to You, my Lord. Come into my heart Lord and fill it to overflowing with your love. Jesus, I trust in You. Help me to place You before all else. Help to keep me on the straight path, do not allow me to stray, and keep me from sin, my God. I dedicate all that I do and say to You and ask that You help make it pleasing. And I pray this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

You can add or take away anything you want, but make it a heartfelt prayer that tells the Lord you trust in Him and His divine will. When we fill ourselves with thoughts about God the darkness is dispelled. We can not live in fear and faith at the same time. God has already overcome the enemy and we need to place our lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We can easily look at examples in the Bible of people who turned their back on God, the Israelites come to mind. God’s people suffered in exile and yet they continued to be unfaithful. If we trust in God we can not serve two masters.

Examine your life and look at the way that you spend your time. Is there anything you can do to place God first? Is there something you can avoid, or move in your schedule to make more time to learn more about your faith? What can you do to surrender your time to God?

I learned that to be more productive during the week I needed time to recharge. Renewing your faith is like a “recharge” of your faith battery. Keeping holy the sabbath is a way to enjoy the world that God has given to you, to enjoy your life in some small way. Enjoying a beautiful day or finding beauty in a storm with the lightning flashing in the distance. Basically praising God in all things.

While we live in a time of darkness this weariness with the world can get us down to a point that we can not see the light that is God through the sin in the world. We can’t help anyone else if we do not help ourselves first. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.”

God can make us new, each and every day. You can renew your faith daily with a quick prayer and ask the Lord to give you the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the trials that come with each day. Faith or religion without a relationship is hollow. Jesus wants a relationship with us, we know this, but we don’t seem to have the time. We make time for all things except this most important element in our lives.

God loves us with a love that is nothing something we can understand or grasp. Our human love by way of comparison is so inadequate. It falls short of the glory and wonder of God. We look to others for this love and find ourselves disappointed. People will disappoint us, this is one of those things we can count on. Each of our lives has some type of sorrow, tragedy, or hardship. Some of us have harder lives than others. Yet our Father who is in heaven looks to us with open arms.

Read 2 Thessalonians 12 – the entire chapter. It is a teaching to those who suffered, but this verse stands out for me, verse 13: “We also unceasingly give thanks to God because, when we handed on the word of God to you, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it truly is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”

Accepting faith, accepting the Word of God as truth, and accepting the truth that belief in God will help us in our lives is just the start of our faith journey, not the end. You see our struggles become insurmountable when we put our trust in others or in ourselves over God. We can do nothing without God. Philippians 4:13 I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”

The best news is that each day is a new day and we can look to the Father for a faith recharge anytime we want or need it. We grow in our faith in the same way as we mature in body. Our faith grows deeper if and when we invite the Lord in, and pray more of you Lord, and less of me.

Read the scriptures and see which verses jump out at you and write them down. Think about them and see what it is that you can learn or what you feel the Lord is telling you.

The challenge this week is to take the time to renew your faith in a meaningful way. Whether it is to purpose to read the Bible each day or spend time with the Lord. What is a way that you can be open to the blessings that can come into your life? This week the focus is on you, not someone else (yes, I know that is hard). Recharge you first and watch the worries and cares fall away! May God be blessed, Amen and Alleluiah!

Thank you to our sponsor, NOW Programs.

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