Then, heed the word of the Lord, follow his commandments, walk faithfully in his ways and your descendants would be like the sand, and your offspring like its grains and their name would never be cut off or destroyed from the presence of the Lord and nothing will make you stumble.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, if you do not yet know Christ, of his goodness and his mercy, my prayer, my hope in the New Year is for you to come to know Him. My prayer is that all of us will offer to God a sacrifice of praise and openly profess his name. Our God is an awesome God, and those who know him should be able to share with others just what God has done in their lives, all of us who know God should be able to readily and without shame openly profess his name. Lord, bless us with hearts to openly profess your name and to offer unto you a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, when we have done all that we can to fix the broken places in our lives, we should turn it over to God, for he is the master potter who can make all things new. “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” God is our peace, and only he could give us this peace.

Let me remind you, that all that you have received is a gift from God, gifts that he intend for you to use for his glory and not only for yourselves. Many are so prideful, that they take all the credit for where they are in life and what they have accomplished, but, know that it is God who has purposed everything that we do and have in our lives, that it is God’s will for us to do good to one another, to share and not to hoard all for ourselves. Some of us are like the rich man Jesus spoke about in the parable who had so much that he was running out of storage spaces, he was busy storing up treasures for himself and not for God. Let us not be like that man who clamored for so much, heaping up worthless goods and yet, not rich in the Lord. It is better for us to have Jesus, and his love in our hearts, spreading his good news, building up his kingdom, than to gain the whole world and in the end loose our souls.

Absolutely not! God is able to abound in you everything that you will need for His service. All that you and I need to do is to step out in faith, believing, that God is able to bless us abundantly, so that in all things and at all times, we may be fit and ready to do His will and our work will never be in vain. Thank you, Lord for the gifts that you have given us, please show us how, when, and where to use them for your glory.

The children of God should differ from the sons of men. We should be earnest, constant, and rejoicing in the work of the Lord. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” We could never be inwardly or outwardly happy unless we are humble. Let us humble ourselves and do God’s work without grumbling or complaining and learn to esteem others, for this is God’s will for us. Praise the Lord!

My brothers and sisters in Christ, if we have Jesus, we should be happy, cheerful people. There are so many things or people, that could make us unhappy, but, we have to choose to be happy no matter what. The enemy’s goal is to rob us of our peace, he wants us to be unhappy, and that is why many times he does not only allow the situations in our lives to break us, he works on us to allow the situations to cause us to sin and we let him. But, we must be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, we must learn to understand the workings around us, we must develop a strong sense of God’s purpose in our lives, so that when the situations in our lives threaten to rob us of our peace, we should remind ourselves, that the situation did not come to stay that it came to pass and that God’s peace in your life and mine will sustain us, and therefore, we will go through every struggle, every heart ache, and every worry with a song in our hearts and much praise for God.

Many of us feel like we do not have anything to share with others because we may not have a lot of money or material things, but the best gift we could give to one another is love. We must first begin to love God, love ourselves and then loving others will come easy. Love, is a kind word, a thought, a good deed, quiet confidence and patient hope. We are reminded in 1^st Corinthians 13 that the greatest gift is love, therefore, let us learn to love unselfishly and abundantly and it will be returned to us in the same measure. We all have much love to share we just have to begin sharing.

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with His stripes we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but, the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Jesus His Son. Hail to the King, our Prince of Peace!

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. He came to shine on those of us living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Therefore, arise and shine, for your Light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you!”