Happy New Year!

As we embark upon a new 12 months, let me take this opportunity to encourage you to use this time to reflect upon the real meaning of life.

What is it that you were put here to do?
Were you put on earth for yourself? to seize as much fun, money, power, etc., that you can and then to die?
Were you put here only to procreate and ensure the human race continues on into the future?
Or, were you put here for some other purpose?

The Bible teaches that you and I were put on this earth for one overarching reason: to glorify the great God of this universe by serving Him with our every breath.

The next question that automatically springs to mind is, “How do I do this?” That, too, is something that I want you to reflect upon at the beginning of this new year—“How can I accomplish my purpose in life in 2008?”

The answer to that question will be different for each of us. No two of us is exactly the same, and so we should not expect our answers to that question to be exactly the same. But, that being said, there should still be some common ground in all of our answers to that question. Since this is the season for resolutions, I’d like to share 20 resolutions that are “common ground” for each one of us in accomplishing our purposes in 2008. They are taken from the Puritan Richard Rogers (1550-1618) and "modernized" a bit...

These 20 items are things that we all should commit to do in this new year:

1. To keep a continual watch over our hearts, words, and deeds.
2. To be careful to redeem the time now and to make sure that our time in the future is not spent idly, carelessly, or unprofitably.
3. To attend to prayer and meditation upon God’s Word at least once each day.
4. To be careful to do good and to receive good from those with whom we spend time.
5. To instruct our family in the things of God and to watch over and care for their spiritual condition.
6. To be sure not to give too much time and care to earthly pleasures and worldly profits, and certainly not to give them more care than our relationship with Christ and His church.
7. To stir up ourselves and others to love God’s people and, especially, to be willing to suffer for doing good.
8. To be sure not to give too much freedom to wandering thoughts and sinful desires.
9. To prepare ourselves to take up our cross and follow after Christ, no matter where that might lead us.
10. To set aside time to grieve over our own particular sins as well as those of the age in which we live.
11. To look with longing each day to the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and for our full deliverance out of this world and into the heaven of heavens.
12. To seek out an honest, godly, faithful, and wise Christian who can hold us accountable and can speak about spiritual things and challenge us to grow in our faith.
13. To remember that we are mortal and that we will not go on forever and, then, to live in light of that fact.
14. To grow in our knowledge of and love for the Bible.
15. To resist the sins and corruptions in our life and to grow in our ability to overcome them.
16. To strive against returning to old and sinful patterns of living and to avoid all occasions and situations that would lead back to them.
17. To ensure, insofar as it has to do with us, that we not lose our first love (Rev. 2:4) and that we continue to enjoy God’s Word, prayer, meditation, and fellowship.
18. To be much in reflecting on God’s benefits and works, in order to praise Him continually for them.
19. To fight to always be grateful for the great redemption Christ has accomplished for us.
20. To practice repentance not just when caught in wrongdoing but as a matter of our daily life and walk.

I do hope that you will all have a Happy New Year and that we, as a church, will strive to live out our reason-for-being in 2008.