Possibilities for a New Year

However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him.

1 Corinthians 2:9

There are great possibilities in store for each of us in the coming year. Possibilities, yes, but they remain to be possessed, and it is quite possible to pass through all of next year without realizing any of them. Possession must begin first with a desire to possess. If you are content with what you are today, then you will never be any better than you are now; you may become worse. Contentment with what you are has a way of deteriorating ultimately into being very distressed with what you are. If you have no urgent desire to lay hold of more, my counsel to you is to pray that God will awaken in you a hunger and a thirst. Then, you must understand the principles involved in possessing the great heritage of promise. Possessing what God has to give never comes by uncrucified self-effort, religious activity, or pious deeds. Possession comes by learning to act on the basis of a fact already true! The possession of God's blessing is not something God does when we ask for it, but, rather, faith lays hold of what already is in Jesus Christ.

You must apply these principles in the present moment. Unfortunately, there are some who well understand the principles of victory but who do not enjoy them in the moment in which they live. Do not wait until tomorrow. We always think that it is possible to obey God in some other situation, but not in the one in which we are right now. We want to wait until next week, or next month. Or else we feel that it is too late — that the hour has passed us by, that we have gone too far down the road, that we have already entrenched ourselves in habits of thought. But this is the way of defeat. We must learn to live in the present tense.

Father, as I stand at the threshold of a new year, looking out at the land and opportunities to be possessed, teach me to live in the present all through the year. I do not want to live in the past, nor in the future, but I want to remember that everything that happens, whether it be failure or success, is under your divine scrutiny. Teach me to trust in your promises as I obey your word.