MAXIMIZING THE POTENTIALS OF THE NEW YEAR
The New Year is around the corner. You have crossed over
having patiently waited for it. Prior to the New Year, your heart might have
been filled with ecstasy, euphoria and a mixture of hope and despair. Some
people might be very apprehensive, not knowing what to expect of the New Year.
Others might be filled with rhetoric questions on what the New Year might
bring. So many people could exclaim in certainty that they made the New Year as
a result of their hard work and the making of right choices.
Whatever shades of opinion we might get, I think it is
needful if not appropriate to thank God we made it to the New Year! Most
certainly, to be further grateful for, our loved ones who made it to the new
year to celebrate with us. Nothing can be likened to it. It’s so wonderful and
amazing to see life get better as we are in the very company of those who would
support and encourage us.
In the previous year we might have had some dreams realized
or unrealized. Maybe certain project, business, academic, ministry, personal
development, career, marriage, family may not have stood up to expectation. May
be they did not yielded fruits commensurate with the time, passion and
resources allocated to it. Maybe you’ve made certain mistakes. You might
have being wrongly influenced or persuaded to take a particular wrong course in
life. May be you have been wrongfully accused or shamed for something you
did not do or know anything about. Maybe you have done something shameful and
regrettable. It’s not too late you can make amends. You can learn from your
mistakes and move forward. Someone said the past is not a place of residence
but a place of reference. Learn from your mistakes. Maybe it’s not really a
mistake but a trust issue. People you trusted may have stabbed you at the back.
Not to worry, it’s a lesson and experience aimed at propelling your life
forward. You know, we relate with people with certain unverified
assumption. For example, I believe people are good, honourable and responsible.
It is your duty and mine to first of all, ensure we posses those virtues in us
and also seek it out in others as a confirmation of our initial assumptions.
Anything short of that is a recipe for disaster-heart break. Never to worry,
God has been willing as always to offer you a whole new opportunity to make a
start over.
If you were told that you’ll live your last today on earth
but suddenly you were later offered a grace of 366 days to right the wrongs in
your life, what would you do differently? Will you speak more kind words than
lacerate? Will you give your spouse more attention? Will you listen more? Will
always be there for your children? Will you make God first in your life? Will
you be passionate about life and enjoy being you instead being another person?
Will you seek to please God and find out what his will is for your life instead
of trying to please men at the expense of God and yourself? Will you be more
prayerful? Will you trust God more? Will you declare his goodness to your
generation? Will you improve yourself? Will you conform to the lifestyle and
example of Christ? Will you learn to make sacrifice beyond your comfort zone?
For some, you might have achieved or realized your dreams
beyond your expectations. You got that contract, pay rise, promotion, your
family is working out and your talents and skills are paying you the
anticipated dividends. You can still improve. You can still take over more
territories. You are incapacitated to the extent you think you are. Scientific
reports brought to fore an interesting discovery regarding the potential of the
human brain. It is reported that for geniuses, only about 10% of their brain is
being tasked and fully exploited. What about the 90%? Is it left for the grave
and soil? The rationale of this illustration is to remind you to keep moving forwards.
Become a better, father, mother, parent, son/daughter, In-law, businessperson,
employer, employee, spouse, student, Christian, minister by placing a demand on
your potential and strength.
Strengths
What are those things, people or circumstances that brought
your latent strength to fore? Judging by enormous resources of 365/366 man days
allocated to you by nature some may say, but I rather say by God; how
judiciously and meticulously have you employed this resource to its optimum in
terms of meaningful and measurable productivity? I hope you agree with me
that time is an invaluable resources? Someone rightly said, it’s only a lunatic
will keep on employing the same method time and time again, yet expecting a
different result each time. If you do not like the output or expectation of a
given condition or expectation, it becomes imperative and necessary to change
the constituent variables of such a function. It has been said overly that what
you daily you do permanently. A man cannot consistently behave in a
manner that is inconsistent with his nature or habit or choices. The future you
expect is just a second away from your last thought from now! The largest room
on earth is the room for improvement. You can decide to feed your strength and
become better by taking cognizance of what worked for you in the past year. It
is quite pathetic that so many a people have refused, either by sheer ignorance
or mental indolence to discover their areas of strength and try to build their
talent, life and opportunities within that hemisphere. You cannot be
everything, neither can you do everything. Wise people know what works for them
based on their individual peculiarities. It is quite revealing and instructive
to find out that the New Year brings nothing but a clean slate of opportunity
to further the cause of your life as a predicate of the currency of time.
God is infinite, but man is finite. God is timeless. He does
not need clock, watch or calendars but man imperatively needs them. Man’s days
are timed. God created time and seasons. For Man to comprehend time and season,
into seconds, minute, hour, day, week, month and year. Invariably speaking, the
New Year does not literally come with loads of baggage neither does Santa Claus
accompanies the new year to bring you new tidings. The New Year is a
sub-division of time. It is an indication that a particular timed season
(year) has ended and a new timed season (year) has come. Life will be
very boring if this division were not made assuming we are to live our life in
a stretch without yearly intervals. Things may still remain the way they are
including you if you do not make judicious use of the New Year to become a
better you via the auspices of faith anchored on God and on his promises.
It is very important to pay serious attention to people and
things that matter most to you in this New Year. Pay attention to God,
yourself, your family, your loved ones, your job or business, your ministry or
church and the list continues. Become more effective in this New Year. No
excuses, unwholesome indulgence. Decide to give and serve God and humanity. It
is self defeating to give the time; you don’t have to things or people that
are, cynical, critical, skeptical, hypocritical, sycophant, envious, wicked,
toxic, caustic and corrosive. It is counter-productive. It’s high time you kept
away from people who run you down and tear you into pieces, disloyal people and
people who are in alliance with your enemies. If you can’t change a person
apply the law of natural Congregational segregation. Congregational segregation
in the sense that there are some people by virtue of the exigencies of duty,
residential affiliation or communal ties you might not totally keep off from
them by reason of your domestication or employment or business within a
specific geographical location. You relate with them diplomatically from a
distance without telling why you do what you do.
The most profound decision any man can take is to be
reconciled to his maker via a renewed commitment and relationship with Jesus
Christ. So many a people embrace religion but have no direct relationship with
Jesus. Have you noticed that so many people (Heathen and liberalists and some
so called Christians) attribute their life and successes to God and not to
Jesus? What do I mean? Even a native doctor or people of other faiths have
claims to God but not to Jesus. Jesus is the only way to God because we all
lost out as a result of the sin of one man ADAM. Jesus being the second ADAM
came and reconciled us back to God. When we have relationship with Jesus by
being born again, God credits righteousness into our account as a result of our
faith in Jesus. We become God’s righteousness not because of what we have done
or have not done. It is the grace and free gift of God because we believed and
responded to the grace and gift of God. The grace of God is unmerited, unearned
and undeserved favour. Receive it now by confessing and believing Jesus and
saying no to Satan and the world. Make up your mind this year to come closer to
God via Jesus. It is only via God you can achieve and realize your full
potentials. God gives you strength. You can do all things through Christ Jesus
(you know already and have relationship with).
As time draws near, a wise man should plunge into his life
purpose. You cannot afford to waste another whooping sum of 366 (days)
resources. It’s self defeating.
As time draws near too, the coming of Jesus is also nearer
and no one knows when life is going to be over. We need to start living and
enjoy our life in righteousness and pay attention to our lifestyle. We need to
program our life naturally by default to bring God glory and praise in all
things.
Weaknesses
We all have some sort of weaknesses that stares us in the
face every time. By weaknesses, we mean limitations life or circumstances had
placed on you. Some are transitional, reversible or irreversible. When we talk
about weaknesses, we do not mean irresponsible behaviour or sinful practice or
unwholesome indulgence. Weaknesses here do not imply adoption or addiction to
hard drugs or narcotics, immoral life or debauchery. Affiliation to cult groups
or relationship with people of questionable character is not part of the
definition of weaknesses. It’s good we are clear on this concept before we
proceed. A weakness is anything but sin that poses a limitation to the
realization of your God given potential. It could be socioeconomic, poor background,
lack of social status or standing, political or academic deprivation, spiritual
or physical handicap, speech or hearing inhibition or impalement. It could be
one working in area or subject one is not totally conversant with. It could be
one working in a difficult terrain or with difficult people. It could be
because of your status or level in life or in your working place. It may
reflect as prejudice, discrimination based on religion, gender, race, ethnicity
or even the colour of your skin or even family background. Your weakness may
stem from your lack of an impressive physique or facial appearance. Weakness
could also be spelt as, when one is not yet married or have a child, some form
of impediment in the form of sickness, disease, affliction that affects
your performance or psyche for normal functioning. It may be impotence, or
sterility, or psychological disorder. It could also manifest when people try to
bring up your ugly past in order malign you each time; maybe a failed
relationship and so on. Lack or possession of some or all this and more as
mentioned could lead to destructive or scornful criticism or rejection of you
in some quarters, either low or high depending on the individuals involved.
Never worry and do not allow your deprivation limit your
potentials. Everyone has a weakness in light of the definition in this context.
Everyone has what makes him or her to be afraid. In fact a whole lot of people
are motivated by fear. Fear drives them to do what they do; Fear or failure,
rejection, sickness, death, loss of wealth, job, spouse, marriage, investment,
loss of favour, loss of children and property. This explains why people often
prefer to go with the band wagon especially in a hotly debated controversial
issue. They are afraid to be standing alone even when they know truth contrary
to the lies being propagated. They are afraid of rejection, attack, criticism
or even death.
But the righteous (those God made righteous by their simple
believe and reception of Jesus in their lives; the righteousness of God) shall
live and walk by faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. Both cannot co-exist at
the same time in one’s life or heart. Fear contaminates faith. Someone rightly
said that fear is False Evidence Appearing
Real!
As mentioned earlier, some weaknesses are transitional,
reversible or irreversible. By function of vision, determination and hard work
the transitional and reversible can be corrected or improved on. By faith, hard
work and improving oneself academically or acquisition of certain skills one
can jump over the poverty line for example. In the case of the irreversible
weaknesses, there is nothing you can do about it. You just shouldn’t allow it
bother you or stop you from achieving your God ordained purpose.
The scripture tells us that the strength of Christ is made
perfect in our weaknesses. We can overcome our weaknesses by totally depending
on God and seeking to build our life around our strength as compensation.
What are those things that hinder you? Have you noted them
down? How do you intend to contend or manage them for you benefit?
It is good to note that weakness is not a sin and sin is not
a weakness. For example, smoking and immoral living or hot temper is not a
weakness but sin that must be confessed and repented of. But stammering, lack
of discernment, being overly short or tall, bad eyesight, poor background,
being prejudiced for whatever reason is a weakness on your part and not a sin.
This brings us to a very important conclusion: God forgives
our sin and strengthens our weaknesses. God does not forgive our weakness and
strengthen our sins.
Opportunity:
Everyone in life does have an opportunity to achieve certain
things. Opportunity can be described as a timed platform or window which you
may not have necessarily earned that is allocated to you to give you a leverage
to achieve your goals if duly recognized and exploited.
You might as well consider an opportunity as a break or
leverage or even a ladder to climb over into your dreamed destination.
The bad news is that so many people do not recognize their
opportunities or even when discovered, they do not know what to do with it.
Some blow it up. Someone said that opportunity is missed by many becomes it
comes dressed in work overalls! Ben Carson the renowned neurosurgeon and once
American Republican Presidential candidate said: “You are considered lucky when
preparations meet with opportunity’.
The scripture tells us of time. There is time for everything.
Opportunity means your time for something, some project in your life. Wasting
it leads to life set backs or leads to failure and depression eventually.
Most importantly, God offers us opportunity to know him
personally via his son Jesus. Some do not recognize it. Some certainly
take it for granted. If you lose that opportunity, it might difficult for you
to know Christ by being born again again. When you lose that opportunity at
most, you will embrace religion without Christ which is tantamount to going to
Hell fire.
You may be have lost or blown up your opportunity in the
previous year. You do not to have to beat yourself up over it. Opportunity is
available for you in this New Year to make a start over. Exploit every good
opportunity that will advance the cause of your life to the glory of God this
year.
What would you do differently this year? The year is still
fresh, virgin and young. What are your dreams and aspirations this year?
Regardless of your level in life you can still become more efficient and
productive in your endeavours.
This year may be the best opportunity to go back to earn a
college degree, learn a new skill, make amends with your parents, your spouse
or even your children. This may be the best time to bring your family together
and end that fuss. This may be the best time to take that short course to
improve yourself, start up that business, start up the ministry God has called
you into, write that proposal, write that book, write that song or even publish
that book or wax those songs.
This is the opportunity for you to become a better you, a
better Christian. Become more faithful, more committed to God and his kingdom
project. It is an opportunity to help those within your sphere of influence. It
is an opportunity to fall in love all over with your spouse. Treat them with
more dignity and respect.
Threats:
Threats are those things that challenge your goals, vision
and in some cases your well-being and life altogether. Threats are those things
that bully, intimidate or even make you afraid. Everyone has what constitute
threat to his or her life at one point in life. The first step to wisdom is to
identify those sources of threat to one’s life and effectively manage your
relationship with them. Some people will continue to experience colossal
failure time and time again until they are able to isolate those factors and
sources of threats in their life.
It is quite an aberration if not totally embarrassing for one
to live one’s life without taking record of events in one’s life over time with
view to taking a holistic appraisal. These appraisals will enable one to keep
track of successes and failure, mistakes that need to be corrected and those
things that need to be upheld or discarded from one’s life. Remember what you
do daily, you do permanently. You can keep doing the same thing year after year
and still expect different results each time.
To change the outcome of your life and expectation it will be
necessary to change your thought pattern. The scripture tells us that as a man
thinketh in his heart so is he. Your outside life is a reflection of your inner
life. Your inner life is your thought pattern. These are proved formula for
life. The root of life is spiritual. It does not matter your shade of opinion
or orientation, life is spiritual. Your real you is your spirit. You posses a
soul. Your soul is your ‘thinker’, ‘your chooser’ and ‘your feeler’. Your soul
is the hub and store house of all acquired knowledge and decision making
capacity. Finally, you live in a body. It therefore implies that you are a
triune being.
As mentioned earlier, your inner life is your thought
pattern. This brings us to a very important point, your thoughts are spiritual.
It is not concrete. Thoughts are not tangible. You can feel or see it but you
can see the resultant effect of such a thought. Your thoughts determine your
speech or confession. Your confession determines your behaviour. Your behaviour
determines your action. Your action finally determines your experience or
result in life. To change your circumstance, you need to change your thought
pattern. For us to think rightly to get good results, we need to renew our mind
with the word of God and refuse to be conformed to the thinking pattern of the
world. There are several benefits being born again gives us when we believe and
co-operate with God.
According to Creflo Dollar, Words determine the way you
think. The way you think determines the way you feel. The way you feel
determines the decision you take. The decision you take determines your action.
Your action determines your habit. Your habit determines your character. Your
Character determines your destination in life.
Like we said earlier, everyone does have things that threaten
him or her. Life has never being easy or fair. In addressing our threats, we
need to filled with faith filled thoughts and the word of God.
The first target destination the word of God intends to
influence us is our hearts, our thoughts. Once we achieve a change in our
thought, the word of God has succeeded in changing us altogether.
Having discovered your threats, it is very important to know
how to effectively manage them. Keep off from toxic, corrosive and caustic
people. It’s high time you left that cult group, those wrong relationship and
bad company. You already know it pays you no dividend. Don’t you think it’s
high time you stopped that alcohol consumption, smoking of weed and narcotics?
You know it, you know it is a threat to your health but you still held on to
it.
It’s high time you give a quit notice to that strange
mistress, man and lover in your life. It’s in your hands to end your misery.
You can choose to go back to your spouse and make some reconciliation.
What are those things that threaten your life and well being?
Is it a habit, a lifestyle, an association, set of people, sickness or
affliction, family issues, academic limitation etc., You require wisdom from
God to help you to surmount them and know the next line of action to take.
A detailed and comprehensive understanding of SWOT analysis
regarding your life will put you in a good position to effectively manage your
life better in this New Year.
Wisdom lies in knowing what works for you based on your
individual peculiarity. The New Year brings nothing but a clean slate of
opportunity to enable you further the cause of your life.
God is infinite, but man is finite. God is timeless. He does
not need clock, watch or calendars but you need them. Your days are timed. God
created time and seasons. Man in order to comprehend time and season subdivided
the seasons and time into seconds, minute, hour, day, week, month and year. The
New Year does not literally come with loads of baggage. The New Year is a
sub-division of time. It is an indication that a particular timed season
(year) has ended and a new timed season (year) has come. Life will be
very boring if this division were not made assuming we are to live our life in
a stretch without yearly intervals. Things may still remain the way they are
including you if you do not make judicious use of the New Year to become a
better you via the auspices of faith anchored on God and on his promises.
Involve yourself in things that give life; things and people
that add to you. Stay away from things that drain your energy. Learn to start
believing in God and his promises. Learn to start believing in you. Believe in
your dreams and passion even when others say no to it! Where will you be in
five years from now if Christ tarries? The books you read, people you connect
with and place you go will help you answer that question five years from now.
It is very important to pay serious attention to people and
things that matter most to you in this New Year. Pay attention to God,
yourself, your family, your loved ones, your job or business, your ministry or
church and the list continues. Become more effective in this New Year.
Once again, welcome to the New Year. It promises to be great.
It’s an opportunity measured with time to live out your life purposes and bring
God glory. The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the former. God
does not perform his best in our yesterdays but in our future. God said I
should tell you, He’ll do a new thing and bring you to your place of glory,
only believe and trust me all the way through. HAPPY NEW YEAR, DEAR. Go, enjoy!
Alter Call:
If you have not given your life to Jesus, this is a good
opportunity for you to do so. Repent of your sins believe in Jesus and confess
him now as your Lord and saviour. Say “Dear Lord Jesus, I believe in my heart
that you came and died for my sins and was raised on the third day by God. I
therefore confess with my mouth that you are my Lord and saviour. Please
forgive and wash me with your blood. I receive your offer of grace and receive
eternal life in my spirit. Thank you Jesus for making me the righteousness of
God!”
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Rev’d MI Israel is a teacher of the word, writer,
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