Fresh Starts

January, a Fresh Start.  Time to box up 2017 and look forward to collecting all that this new year holds.  We are a few weeks into all the hopes and expectations we put into this year already.  The gyms are still full and the donut lines are still shorter than they were a month ago.  We are heading into this year with some great traction.

This new beginning brings with it a renewed spirit and a detoxing of all the negativity and awful decisions that took place last year.  Even if last year was filled with bad eating habits, regretful financial decisions, or even unhealthy relationships that took place.  Whether it happened 6-weeks ago or 8-months ago it feels good to say that it happened last year.  “Last year” makes it feel so far away, so distant, and distance makes us feel safe enough to start over, to start fresh.

As someone passionate about seeing people come to Christ, I love Fresh Starts.  Our culture highlights them in January, but in church, we highlight them every single week:

• Who wants a Fresh Start?
• Who is tired of the way things have been going?
• Who is fed up with the rat race that feels like a dead end?
• Who is defeated by the weights of this world that feel too heavy to carry?
• Who is emotionally spent with the friendships they’ve made with depression, anxiety, and fear?

This is the January message we get to preach all-year-long:

• You get a Fresh Start.
• You are more than your worst day because we see potential in the days to come.
• You can have hope for your future because a price was paid to ensure it.
• You have been adopted into a family and have biblical papers to prove it.
• No matter what your days were like leading up to this one, you are a new creation.

You get a Fresh Start.

You may feel this momentum in January, but hear me say, we as Christians get fired up to tell you about this offer all-year-long.  Knocking at the door, asking to be invited in.  A January Fresh Start decision that will last more than just one year.  A cup that is overflowing.  A relationship that will never leave or forsake you for whatever your life has in store.  This is worth looking into.

As the gyms fill up and our grocery carts get consumed with fresh fruits and vegetables (that hopefully make it to our mouths before the trash can), we are surrounded by the reminder that even our bodies are designed as a new creation.  December was filled with cookies, sugar-coated ham, and lots of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, but we don’t eat like that now, I know that was 8-weeks ago, but that was so last year.  Things are different.  Fresh Start, remember?

No matter the decisions from last year, no matter how out of shape you are starting out in 2018, you are guaranteed the opportunity of health with the decisions you make in 2018.  You get a choice!  And when we really think about the big hype in a Fresh Start, that’s really all we are celebrating, celebrating that we realize we have a choice to do something different, to try something different, because we are hopeful for a different outcome once we get to the end of next year.

Friends, we have been crafted from the image of God.  Of course it makes sense that we can turn our health around with the simplest of decisions of what we put into our mouth and how we take care of our bodies.  The same God that crafted our bodies offers the same truth for your spiritual life as well.  Fresh Start with the simple Gospel message that Christ made Himself lowly to build a bridge to have a relationship with You and I.  Jesus, the Son of God, did what only He could do on a cross so that we can have a lasting hope for our future.  That is something worth celebrating, that is something that puts a fire under my butt and pushes me with a lasting momentum!

With all the energy we have walking into this new year, let’s celebrate all the Fresh Starts and new January beginnings that are going to take place all throughout this year, February-December included.  Your worldly calendar may offer you a Fresh Start when it begins in January, or even every month you get to turn the page, but this offer, this Fresh Start into a new life in Christ, this we will be talking about all-year-long!

I couldn’t be more excited, what about you?

**Know anyone that is in need of a Fresh Start?  Share this message with a friend!  Or, if you are starting out this year hoping for a Fresh Start, join us!  Click the Follow button on this blog to get encouragement sent directly to your email all year long.  We’d love to have you here with us.