What if this past year was just a year where God was making sure your heart was ready? I’m not talking so much about God testing you but preparing you. Even if you think you utterly failed in how you responded to this past year maybe God had used a season of waiting, mourning and praying to push you to your limit to make you more durable for the road ahead.
Every single day we must wake up and allow Christ to kill the old man. The flesh must die. The old man must be killed, the desires that raise up within you that desire things of the old man must die. Let Christ kill the old man every time he rears his ugly head. The old man will look strangely familiar—he will look more like you and be more dear to you then anyone else you know. But if Christ is to grow the New Man within you that looks more like Jesus, then the old man must go. There is no use in keeping him around, he will only drag you down to hell. The old flesh must die.
“But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
There are a number of jokes that have been circulating the internet and are in little gift books. They are always titled something like, “You know you’re _______ if you’ve ever…”, “You know you’re a pastor if…”, or “You know you’re from Chicago if…” or even, “You know you’re a redneck if…” One of my favorites talks about how you can identify where a driver is from.