GBC Community Update: New Year's resolutions

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2024! May the Lord fill us with his spirit and guide us in the adventure to come.
 
 January Calendar is here!
The January calendar is out. You can get a copy on the info table at the back of the auditorium.  As always, this is not just to let you know what’s happening here but is also a tool to know what to pray about.
 
Youth Group- “Alive” starts up tomorrow
Parents, please be aware, our Wednesday night youth gathering is starting up tomorrow night at 6:30pm.
 
 Thought for the day:  New Year’s Resolutions
And so we have begun a brand new year. 2023 was pretty amazing for me in so many ways. While it had challenges there were also a lot of blessings. It’s good to look back and remember.  For many, New Year’s is just another holiday. For others like me it’s a time of deep reflection, both on the past year and on the one ahead.
 
For followers of Jesus, New Year’s has no unique significance. There’s no central biblical narrative informing our celebrations.  But this doesn’t mean Christians shouldn’t pause and reflect on the turning of the calendar. Moses asked God: “Teach us to number our days, so we may get a heart of wisdom”.  Time—seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, is a gift to us from a good God. To wisely follow him, then, is to redeem our time.
 
New Year’s can also remind us of the opportunity for new life.  Each day with Jesus is a chance to turn the page on an old way of life and embrace a new one. We are, after all, new creation people, and we serve a King who renews us daily by the Holy Spirit.
Setting goals for a new year are an important sign that we’re intentional about glorifying God in our callings whether that is at work or in school, at home or at church.
Before we write out our goals, we should begin in the heart. The temptation for Christians is to make our plans and add a splash of Jesus on top, rather than allowing him to form in us the desires and motivations to do his work.
 
Whether or not we’re making concrete goals or more abstract ones, whether you’re writing down resolutions or foregoing them altogether, over the next several updates I’m going to share some steps we can take, as we move triumphantly through 2024, to draw closer to Jesus.
 
In His grip,
Pastor Chris