Resolutions of the heart

A great article from christiantoday website. Hope it blesses your heart
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Resolutions of the heart: Live generously, reflect all year long, grow closer to God

by Anne Thomas

Posted: Friday, January 2, 2009, 9:40 (GMT)

As nice as being happier, healthier and wealthier are for New Year’s resolutions, the ministry of Billy Graham is encouraging people to see their goals for 2009 as “an attitude of the heart” rather than “tasks to accomplish”.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association hopes it has come up with three New Year’s resolutions that will not prove too difficult to keep the whole year. They are: to live generously, reflect all year long, and grow closer to God.

“A list of resolutions can lead to discouragement if the goals prove too difficult to maintain. After all, lasting change begins in a person's heart—not on a numbered list or piece of paper,” writes Ann Marie Chilton for the BGEA website.

Living generously is, she says, a great way for believers to share the Gospel with their lives.

“If people are generous with their time, generous with their money, and generous with their belongings, then it's easy for others to see Christ's love lived out through their lives. And they reap the benefits tenfold through watching joy overflow into other people's lives,” she writes.

“Just as God is always generous with us, so His followers should be generous with others in everything.”

Chilton asked Christians to consider how they could be generous this year with their forgiveness, their time, their care for others, and their God-given gifts and talents.

“Live generously, and God’s love will be evident in your life.”

Putting a positive spin on the need to self-reflect, she urged people to reflect during their prayer time with God and see it as an opportunity for change.

“Reflections at the end of a year usually turn into regrets. It may seem too late or too overwhelming to reflect at this point, yet if people take time to reflect each day, then they will be able to make small changes in their lives—ones that will make a real difference at the end of a year,” she says.

“Take a moment each day to spend time in prayer. Ask God to show you the kind of person He wants you to be. It's painful to reflect on one's actions and then try to change for the better, but over time, self-reflection leads to wisdom.”

As a first step towards growing closer to God in 2009, Chilton advises Christians to memorise portions of the Word of God and spend time with Him daily by setting a devotional prayer time every morning.

She says, “A challenge to learn and recall verses from the Bible opens up the opportunity for God's wisdom to take hold in your life; so it's not just raw memorisation.”

Committing to acts of service or intercessory prayer are also good ways, she believes, of growing closer to God while fulfilling another common New Year’s resolution – that of helping others more.

“Enjoy growing closer to God this next year as well as challenging yourself to live generously and reflect daily - these are resolutions of the heart.”

How to overcome discouragement

I thought this article is really good....and it came very timely to my inbox....as i'm somewhat discouraged lately... but God has His ways of cheering me on....as always :)

read on......

How to Overcome Discouragement by Rick Warren
Then the people of Judah said, “The work crews are worn out, and there is too much rubble. We can’t continue to rebuild the wall.” Nehemiah 4:10 (GWT)

Discouragement is curable. Whenever I get discouraged, I head straight to Nehemiah. This great leader of ancient Israel understood there were four reasons for discouragement:

First, you get fatigued. You simply get tired as the laborers did in Nehemiah 4:10. We’re human beings and we wear out. You cannot burn the candle at both ends. So if you’re discouraged, it may be you don’t have to change anything. You just need a vacation! Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is go to bed.

Second, you get frustrated. Nehemiah says there was rubble all around, so much that it was getting in the way of rebuilding the wall. Do you have rubble in your life? Have you noticed that anytime you start doing something new, the trash starts piling up?
If you don’t clean it out periodically, it’s going to stop your progress. You can’t avoid it, so you need to learn to recognize it and dispose of it quickly so you don’t lose focus on your original intention.
What is the rubble in your life? I think rubble is the trivial things that waste your time and energy and prevent you from accomplishing what God has called you to do.

Third, you think you’ve failed. Nehemiah’s people were unable to finish their task as quickly as originally planned and, as a result, their confidence collapsed. They were thinking, “We were stupid to think we could ever rebuild this wall.”
But you know what I do when I don’t reach a goal on time? I just set a new goal. I don’t give up. Everybody fails. Everybody does dumb things. So the issue is not that you failed – it’s how you respond to your failure.
Do you give in to self-pity? Do you start blaming other people? Do you start complaining that it’s impossible? Or, do you refocus on God’s intentions and start moving again?

Finally, when you give in to fear, you get discouraged. Nehemiah 4 suggests the people most affected by fear are those who hang around negative people. If you’re going to control the negative thoughts in your life, you’ve got to get away from negative people as much as you can.
Maybe you’re discouraged because of fear. You’re dealing with fears like, “I can’t handle this. It’s too much responsibility.” Maybe it’s the fear that you don’t deserve it. It’s the fear of criticism. Fear will destroy your life if you let it. But you can choose to resist the discouragement. Say, “God help me get my eyes off the problem – off the circumstance – and keep my eyes on you.”

Therefore, discouraged no more......let's get going.......

Wet Pants...

My colleague forwarded this short article to me, I thought it's quite a good read :)

Here goes...

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Come with me to a third grade classroom..... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk.

The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!"

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."
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May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good.

Remember.....Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.Each and everyone one of us are going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can.

Keep the faith.