The Best Year Yet--2010

[a word I shared at my house church, Communitas--you can receive it too!]

2010 will be the best year of your life and also the most difficult; if you will accept the challenge you will experience a coming into your "promiseland." For many of you, this will be a year of entering a "promiseland" in a certain area of you life. 2010 will be the best year but you will face many difficulties. A few of you will even experience tremendous pain, but don't be alarmed. The Lord will comfort and will be with you. He promised to never leave you nor forsake you. His presence is with you and this is true for all of you. You will face difficulty and it will be the hardest you have yet, but it will be hugely rewarding if you allow God to work his holy response in you. So I exhort you to be ready. I want you to anticipate the best year of your life and I want you to expect difficult challenges along the way. Do not be surprised, as the book of James explains, when trials will come your way (James 1:12). So you have a responsibility as you respond to God working his godly response in your life. Let me tell you what your rights are: 1) Expect the best year ever, and 2) Have a right and godly response to trials. It will be vital that you don't get discouraged along the way. Discouragement will rob you of your inheritance word.

There are two important attributes that will help you navigate through the rewards and challenges of 2010, knowing your sonship and having the fear of the Lord.

Fear of the Lord
There is a need to take opportunities that are before you. In addition you must learn to become an initiator as your Heavenly Father is. You can't sit passively waiting for something to just happen to you. God does not have puppets in his Kingdom but warriors that are looking to redeem those that are imprisoned by darkness. So you need to take upon your self that warrior mentality. One of a warriors greatest strengths is his or her's sobriety--having an understanding of the seriousness of the times. Sobriety comes through the fear of the Lord. This sobriety enables one to be prepared. You want to be ready to enter your "promiseland." So let me encourage you to pray for this. Seek for it with all your heart. Do a Bible study on it. Do whatever it takes to walk in a greater fear of the Lord. If you don't know what it means, than find out. Do whatever you can to gain a fear of God.

Sonship
As you approach your "promiseland" another important attribute, or rather revelation, that you will need is your sonship. You are sons and daughters of your Heavenly Father. This is who you are. And it is out of that image that you will learn to be an initiator in God's kingdom. Through a spirit of sonship you have a confidence to step out in faith and essentially grab a hold of the promise that God is giving you. A confident son will not back down when faced with giants in the the land because he knows "who is daddy is." How does one step into their sonship? We understand our sonship when we understand our Heavenly Father. A revelation of the Father's heart releases an understanding of our sonship. So pray for that. Ask your Heavenly Father to reveal more of himself to you, so that you can walk boldly into your land of promise.

So as you anticipate 2010 remember, having the fear of the Lord will allow you to receive humbly your inheritance in your "promiseland." And embracing your identity as sons and daughters will allow you to be an initiator, no longer sitting passively but with confidence boldly acquiring your inheritance.

Discovering our promise in the Promiseland
So what is your inheritance? What is the promise that God is giving you for 2010? Some of you already have a sense of what that is. God has revealed personally to you what 2010 holds. Others of you will be discovering it soon as you walk in some of your goals and dreams. And still others of you really not sure what to think about this. Let me suggest that there is one promise that you can all bank on and walk in today and that is the promised Holy Spirit. I'll talk about that in a moment.

Let me suggest that you don't get surprised if your "promiseland" looks differently than you anticipate. There are certain promises to which you are holding, but don't get caught off guard when God brings a fulfillment of a different one.

If you want to discover what God's promise is for you in this New Year, begin by asking the following question, "Who am I becoming?" Ask yourself, "Who do I want to become in Christ?" It's not about what we do for God but who we are becoming in Him. God is more concerned about what he is putting in you then what you will do for him (although that is important too).

Promised Holy Spirit
No matter what part of the journey we find ourselves, there is one promise that we can confidently bank on, it is the constant presence of God through the Holy Spirit with us. Our Heavenly Father sent us his promised Holy Spirit, with whom we get to continually receive. Our task then is to get good at learning to receive him and more of him. Apparently we leak. Let me invite you to become like a child and ask for another drink of God's refreshing waters through his Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39). Ask for more of him. It may help to picture someone climbing up a thousand foot rope with all their strength then God inviting them to total let go. Children are good at letting go and simply receiving. As we approach our land of promise we don't want to go into that place without God's presence. We don't want to go any where without him. (Read Exodus 33.) We need his presence and we have to ask for him.

Conclusion
So it's really a paradox as we approach our "promiseland"--being confident as sons and aggressive in faith with the fear of the Lord, while surrendering and receiving the Holy Spirit and his empowerment to rest in our inheritance. The Holy Spirit empowers through his promises and presence whereby we become partakers of his divine nature--becoming more like him (1 Peter 1:3-4). Your inheritance is to become like Jesus. And as you encounter him you will experience the hardest yet most rewarding year of your life. Go for it!

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Eph 3:20-21