Your 2011 Decisions: Invite Jesus to the Table!

I heard an amazing story today that reconfirmed to me again the reality of Christ and His power and ability to do what He has said He will do. The lady I spoke to said to me that in a lot of ways she was getting confused about the reality of Christ what with all of the terrible stories we hear concerning Christians; the testimonies that leave you confused as to the accuracy of our faith. Then she took ill and God in His goodness shows up in the midst of this real bad situation and assures her of the reality of His existence. As she shared her experience with me, I was again reassured of the reality of His existence and my faith in Him was renewed and strengthened.

It made me wonder as to why we celebrate the birth of Christ just before the end of the year. I don’t think it is a coincidence. It is traditional at this time to think through what happened the entire year and then make new decisions that will guide us through the next year. For me it does not matter whether or not Christ was born on this day but the truth is, as the year comes to an end, we enter into a period of deep thoughts and sober reflection. It is a good time to be reminded of Christ. It kind of gives some form of hope for the future inspite of whatever happened in the past year and guides us as we make these new decisions. The truth is that some of these decisions will die immediately we enter into the New Year, some will never see the light of day and some will become a part of our lives forever.

As we make these decisions, I really want to encourage us to invite Jesus to be a part of this decision making. We must realize that Jesus is real and He wants to help us succeed. His plan is not just to put ideas in us but also to empower us and walk with us to ensure that we succeed. I can’t promise you that you will always like the decisions you end up with if you invite Him to be a part of your decision making process but I can assure you that you will make decisions that will take you forward in life. As they say “the best things in life often come in wrong packages” just like some of these decisions are seemingly “wrong packaging”.

The process of inviting Him to be a part of the decision making process is making one’s mind open to His ideas and putting all the thoughts and decisions against the word of God thereby ensuring that they are not contrary to the word. That is the first way to ensuring that we succeed because the Bible says in

Isaiah 14: 24 NLT “The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has sworn this oath: it will all happen as I have planned. It will all be as I have decided.”

After having, made the decisions, we need to believe that they will be established even as we walk toward having them established with the Holy Spirit as our helper. We need to have faith in God and in His power and ability to bring to pass that which He has said He will do. I don’t know about you but that is where my own challenge begins. One of the things we need to resolve to do is to do whatever it takes to have faith that transforms the word of God into reality in our lives. I trust God to be helper even to achieve that.

Happy New Year in advance!