How to make a fresh start
Regardless of what happened in 2007. One thing that you will have more of in 2008 than you had in 2007 is experience. And you can learn from the mistakes that you made in 2007. God uses our experiences to shape us.
Have you suffered so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? [Gal. 3:4] Have you not learned from your experiences. God sometimes uses our experiences to shape us.
Take stock of your experiences; to take stock means to evaluate. Don’t let the things you learned last year go to waste. Some of us are thirty, forty, fifty years old. But we don’t have thirty forty, fifty, etc experience. Why because we keeping making the same mistakes every year. If you don’t sit down and think it through you will make the same mistakes this year that you made last year.
Act in faith
The next step in getting a new start in to Act in Faith. You have to launch out in new territory in 2008. The bible says that the key to changing anything is faith. If you want to change your circumstance it takes faith. If you want to change your personality it takes faith. If you want to change anything in your life it takes faith.
Jesus says in Matthew 9 according to your faith it will be done to you. That is a powerful statement. That means we tend to get out of life what we expect. If you expect a tough year; a hard year; guess what it will be a hard year. If you expect the same old same old guess what It will be the same old same old? Nothing will change.
We tend to get out of life what we expect. If you say I can’t you’re right. If you say I can you are right because we tend to get out of life what we expect. If you say we can and if you say we can’t you’re right because we tend to get out of life what we expect. “According to your faith it will be done to you.”
So you need to start expecting more. Start expecting more of yourself. Start expecting more of God. That’s the principal for faith.
In order to start acting in faith you have got to stop having a pity party. You have got to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Oh poor me. I’m such a victim. Life is so unfair. Yes life is unfair. Whoever said that life was fair? God never said life was fair. We live in a world filled with sin and because of that, life is unfair.
But guess what you have to go on with life anyway. You have to stop having a pity party. Stop rehearsing the past, stop regretting the past and get on with your present and your future. The more you regret 2007 the more you waste 2008. The more time you spending thinking I wish that hadn’t happened. I wish I could change that, you are making yourself miserable and setting yourself up for more of the same. The way you set yourself up for failure is by focusing on past failures. Because whatever you focus on tend to reproduce itself in your life. According to your faith it will be done to you.
What you need to do is learn from your failures. Every successful business persons know that real success is built on failure. Failure is that way that you become a success. You figure out what doesn’t work. The man who invented the light bulb got it right on the 200th try. He got it right that time because he knew 199 ways that would work. You never call it failure in your life but you call it education. It teaches you what doesn’t work.
Some of you are highly educated people. You know a lot of things that don’t work in your personal life. You know a lot of things that don’t work in your marriage. You know a lot of things that don’t work raising children. You know a lot of things that don’t work at making a living. But that’s ok. You can build on that.
So God does not want you to sit around and wallow in your failures. Instead he proverbs [16.9 A man heart plans his way, but the lord directs his way.] Makes plans counting on god to direct us.
What plans have you made for your life in 2008? What plans have you made? Because I have discovered that if I don’t plan for me I will march by the plans of others. And in that case you will drift through life with no direction. Planning is an exercise in faith. It is saying I believe God wants me to this by a certain time. And you may not reach all of your goals. That’s ok. The point is not reaching all of your goals. The point is do you have something to head to so that your life have direction. So many people have no direction in their life.
God says plan but let me direct your life. The bible says in [Psalms 37 23 the bible says the steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way.]
There’s a story in the bible about a man named Moses. He led the people of Israel out of bondage and out of Egypt. They came up to the Red Sea. The Promised Land was on the other side of the Red sea. They looked to the left they saw mountains. They looked to the right they saw mountains. They looked behind and saw the enemy closing fast. They looked in front and all they could see was impossibility.
You will have some red sea problems in your life in 2008. You are going to say, “Let’s go over the Red Sea.” You are going to say, “Let’s go under the Red Sea. You’re going to say “Let’s go around the Red Sea.” But God says, “No let’s go through it” God say’s “I’ll take you through your Red Sea.” Act in faith and keep walking. Act in faith and he’ll take you through.
Where do you need to act in faith today? Where do you need to take the steps of faith to start over? What’s keeping you from acting in faith and taking the necessary steps to change your life? It’s worrying about what other people think. The bible says that the fear of man is a snare. When you worry about what other people think, you are not going to do what God want you to do and what you need to do but you will do what is convenient to do and that is what everybody else is doing.