Don’t give up, God is for you

Research shows the same Top Ten New Year resolutions crop up every year. Why? It’s obvious. Because they’re just so hard to keep! While a lot of people who make new year resolutions do break them, research also shows that making resolutions is useful.. People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.--TIME Specials

1) We have promises from our God!
We have made resoulutions and we could not keep them. Failures, loss, sickness, you can name a lot of other things. We all have regrets of the past failures. Regrets sting.  But we have promises from our God for our future and they are trustworthy.
Isaiah 42:9  Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

2) Wait patiently and move forward with God:
 
It takes a restored and renewed vision to move forward in God.
Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

3) Get past the Failure Syndrome and develop aN overcoming mentality:
We all have failures in our lives. It’s what we do with them and how we respond to them that makes the difference.
Great accomplishments are often attempted but only occasionally reached. Those who reach them are usually those who missed many times before. Failures are only temporary tests to prepare us for permanent triumphs. --Charles R. Swindall
The price of success is perseverance – our greatest glory lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. Everybody is going to fail from time to time.
Pro. 24:16  for a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity.

4) Plan way ahead,work hard but commit it all to God:
Proverbs 16:3 Commit your works to the LORD, and your thoughts will be established.
Proverbs 16:9  A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.

5) Do not be afraid, we have a God and his support system:
2 Corinthians 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God...
Isaiah 42:16 (NIV) I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)  Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
The beginning of a year is indeed a right time to introspect.
Look Back-set things in order
Look Inward-Let cleansing take place. ‘‘ Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Ps. 51:6 ,7
Look upward, Look To Jesus: He is faithful, For God to be unfaithful would be to act contrary to His nature, which were impossible. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is. 2 Tim. 2:13
Look Forward: The God who said “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” Heb. 13:5, is with us, not against us and He is for us. With that assurance we can face the future. If God is for us, who can be against us?
Go ahead, make resolutions, set goals and ‘‘He who has already been doing a good work in you is going to keep on doing it until Jesus returns.’’  (Ph.. 1:6) (Ken’s T.
God bless and have a great God centered year.