Hey beautiful, arise and shine for your light has come and the Lord wants to fill you with His glory. This is the dawn and God’s mercies are fresh and new. For God has brought up the sun and a brand new start, a new year.

As I awoke this morning, a phrase, a statement, a thought brewed and formed: What I am today places no limitations upon what I can be tomorrow. I reworded it many times in my mind, but the gist of it is my potential is not limited by who or what I am. Yet more often than not, I live my life in the if-only or buts. Excuses for not being or doing what I ought.

An ancient and influential man said, “For I can do everything through Christ,who gives me strength.” (1) I can grasp God’s vision of who he wants me to be and what he wants me to do, then rise up to that calling. As long as I have breath of life in me, I can change. Change is going to happen anyway, but will I embrace and engage change for my betterment and good. Will I sacrifice and make commitments to take the steps down the ordered path God has chosen for me, to become all he intended?

The only real obstacle, challenge or limitation to my becoming what I can be tomorrow, is my belief. Do I really believe I can do anything, become whatever God’s dream for me is through Jesus’ power? My only restraint is doubt, insecurity, and unbelief.
I ought to be spanked for such lack of faith. Even unreligious people have demonstrated more faith. An ancient political leader possessed faith greater than the religious leaders and Jesus responded to him, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.”(2)

“Wake up, believers, from your lowly condition! Throw away your laziness, sluggishness, coldness, or whatever is interfering with your pure love for Christ. Make Him the Source, the Center, and the One who encompasses every delight of your soul. Refuse to be satisfied any longer with your meager accomplishments. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, and a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!” Charles H. Spurgeon (Cowman, p.15)(3)

Rise up, beautiful beloved. It is time. A new day has come. A new year. A fresh start. The Eternal King and Judge sits before us and says, “Go! It will be done just as you believe it will.” (my paraphrase)

(!)Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible : New Living Translation., “Text Edition”–Spine., 2nd ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), Php 4:13.
(2)The Holy Bible : New International Version, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984), Mt 8:13.
(3)In Streams in the Desert, by L. B. Cowman, 509. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977.