The best way to leave 2020 behind is to shed all your unwanted clothing (expectations, habits, etc.) from this chaotic year, and jump into 2021 naked! Yes, it will be chilly, scary, and inhibiting. It will also being freeing, exhilarating, and your body, mind, and spirit will thank you. Let’s face it, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. By the looks of things, our world is making changes that leave you and I a bit frantic. How about anxious?
I have good news! You and I are in great hands for God is with us. Remember just a few days ago, we celebrated God coming down to us. God did not send His Son to us simply for our enjoyment.
Ponder this, if God sent Jesus to earth just because He felt like it, then how has that one event endured over 2,000 years? How did one baby have the ability to change the course of history?
When you honestly answer this, you can then move forward into deeper water as God leads you by the hand. As you swim deeper, God helps you to shed off your unwanted clothing (your sinful flesh). Soon, you are skinny dipping with your Lord.
If this makes you cringe, swim anyway. If this causes you to hyperventilate because you’re being convicted, swim anyway. If this is a turn off because you get cold easily, swim anyway. God wants you to keep swimming where you have to tread water.
What makes it difficult to swim naked is that it is always in the dark.
Your faith is a personal walk with your Lord. No one can swim for you. You must learn how to depend on God as He leads you deeper out into the dark waters of the unknown. Think of Peter stepping out of the boat and walking on the water with Jesus. You will find this story in Matthew 14. He had to keep his focus on Christ or else he sank. We will sink when we look around at our circumstances or when we ride the waves of another’s faith. Spouses tend to do this. Marriages will flounder when one spouse let’s their mate be the spiritual side of their union.
God is calling you to go deeper so He can strengthen you. He wants you to trust Him as well as obey.
Trust and obey go hand in hand. Trust without obedience is short-sighted living. Look at Romans 2:13, “For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in His sight.”
As you deepen your trust in Christ, the Holy Spirit changes your heart and you begin to heed what God is telling you. Your relationship matures where you want to please God. Your soul isn’t happy unless you are in unison with your Father. Your earthly relationships will be fickle until you get your relationship with Christ settled first.
This can only happen when you strip off the things that are weighing you down. What makes this hard for many people is that God may ask you to let go of good things in your life. It’s not that He desires to deprive you of things. In actuality, He is going to give you better things, things that will make you be your best.
Remember, He is preparing you for eternity. Life on earth is not it! You and I have things we need to learn now. The number one thing to learn is that you and I need Christ. Each of us need to make a decision about the baby boy born in a manger who then died on a cross. He did not remain dead. He rose again and is alive and active in heaven.
Do you believe?
Do you believe in God vs. do you believe God?
Do you believe where you are trusting God and His Word? Do you take time in His Word?
Do you believe where you are trusting God and His Word so much so that you are obeying whatever He tells you?
It’s time to shed off unwanted clothing that keeps you from swimming naked. He has great things ahead for you. Make 2021 the best year ever!
Carol J German 