Your best help for 2024

It’s a new year! We are getting a lot of emails suggesting they have the corner on the market for shedding those extra holiday pounds. I can sum those emails up in one suggestion: Eat less and exercise more. 

We are getting a lot of advice and ads about simplification, de-stressing, getting organized, and living with more physical and mental energy. I would sum up most of those ideas by saying, “Put down the electronics and give yourself more time for chores and sleep.”

My helpful hint for 2024 is a bit different from a lot of those other articles. I would like to suggest that the best thing we can do for our lives in 2024 is to walk more closely with God led by his Holy Spirit. That one decision will do a lot to improve every other area of our lives.

How can we know we are walking with God’s Spirit?

It’s a common goal each January to make our spiritual lives a higher priority. Inevitably, life challenges that high priority. We can make every effort to walk with God’s Spirit, but we can know with certainty that Satan and his crew will be standing around a corner with an evil plan to trip us up. 

Our inboxes will be filled each day with helpful “advice” from Internet marketing and AI targeting. How do we discern which advice is consistent with God’s plans and which advice sends us in a different direction? 

I had to smile when I heard this from a friend. He was talking to my husband about discerning God’s wisdom when he said, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting a tomato in your fruit salad.” That’s a good picture for a lesson to remember: Not every word of advice in this world belongs in our lives.

I want to offer you a daily help for discerning God’s wise priorities. I wrote and recorded Wisdom Matters and it is yours, free of charge. You probably won’t get to it every day of the year, but it is available to you each day. I use a verse of wisdom from God’s word to apply it to the various areas of our lives. If you have not signed up for that daily devotional, you can do that today. 

Scripture tells us that God’s word “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, or joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). 

When we fill our lives with God’s word, the Holy Spirit will make God’s word alive in our lives and give us the wisdom and discernment to know what belongs in our fruit salad and what doesn’t.

What did Jesus promise us for 2024?

I was watching Anne Graham Lotz’s Christmas message and knew I would need to include her thoughts in this first blog post of the new year. I love it when I hear a message from God’s word and gain a new, profound truth!

Anne was talking about the verses in Luke, chapter 1, when Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that the “Holy Spirit would come upon her.” She, a virgin, would conceive and bear God’s Son. From those verses, Anne discussed her own salvation and then said something I had never considered before.

She referred to Jesus’ teaching in John 16 when the Lord told his disciples that he was going away. Jesus could tell the disciples were confused and concerned so he gave them a hope-filled promise. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

Anne went on to teach that when she became a Christian she, like Mary, conceived the person of Jesus in her life, through his Holy Spirit. That’s why the Bible teaches us we are “born again” or “made new” in Christ. The Spirit came to indwell us, much like Jesus came to indwell Mary. Jesus told his disciples that it was to their advantage that Jesus would be going away. We are better off walking with the Spirit of Jesus within our lives than those in the first century who walked with Jesus physically.

If you are a Christian, you have received the same Holy Spirit that Jesus promised his disciples. The Spirit of Christ has been conceived within you. We who walk in God’s Spirit, walk with a very great advantage in this world.

Hold Jesus close in 2024

Our best help for the coming new year is already living in our lives. We carry the actual voice of Jesus to offer us wisdom and direction. We walk with Jesus within us, which is more powerful to our lives than those who walked beside him on earth. We are God’s child because we have received his Son in our lives.

Jesus indwells our lives, our thoughts, our hearts. 2024 will be our best year if we choose to trust the power and guidance of God’s indwelling Son. Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

I hope you will allow Wisdom Matters to speak God’s word into your lives each day. I hope gaining a message from God’s wisdom will help you “keep in step with the Spirit.” 

These are changing times, and this year looks to be volatile, divisive, and could be filled with a lot of unknown dangers. God knows what we can’t and would whisper in our ears, “walk with me and follow my direction.”

Your best help for 2024 is already yours because of Jesus. We can look forward to this new year with his joy, his peace, and his promise of hope. This world may throw a few tomatoes our way, but with God’s help we won’t let them alter the fruits of his Holy Spirit.

Happy New Year!

A month for grateful prayers

Thank you all for ordering this year’s Advent book. I wrote it almost a year ago and it is so fun to see it in print! We need to sell Advent books early to get them all shipped. Even though it seems our entire culture is rushing into the Christmas season, let’s not miss the JOY of November.

November has always been one of my favorite months. This month is usually a bit slower-paced because everyone is planning for December. I will celebrate a significant birthday this month, and it seems AARP, Medicare, and several more are hunting me down! But every birthday is a reminder that I have so much to be grateful for and so much to look forward to. I view my lifetime as a road trip of birthdays that will thankfully and joyfully end at the gates of heaven.  

November is also the month we celebrate my favorite holiday. I love everything about Thanksgiving. It is about all my favorite things: family, food, football, and faithful praise. I don’t want us to miss Thanksgiving just because Christmas is already front and center in the stores and in the multitude of ads and emails we all receive.  

How can we be careful to enjoy and celebrate November before December arrives?  

A month to offer God praise 

Start by listing ten things that happened in 2023 that you were grateful for, and do it in the next two minutes. Go! 

(No, really . . . list them now!) Everything else can wait. 

How did it go? Was it easy, a bit tough, or maybe you wish I’d asked for seven or eight? 

It’s often easier to be grateful in the moment, but if we allow those memories to fade we can lose our sense of the abundant blessings in our lives. 

My list 

I was able to quickly list the first two on my list, but the others came after a few moments of reflection. I praise God that: 

  1. My grandson’s treatments for leukemia were a great success and he is doing well.
  2. Our move to Tyler was exhausting, but we are settled into a home that we love, and we are excited for our first holiday season in our new home.
  3. Our ministry continues to receive amazing notes and words of encouragement that keep us motivated and excited to keep walking with God and following his lead.
  4. We enjoyed the blessing of seeing our Tyler-area grandkids play sports, swim in the pool, and just live their happy lives.
  5. Jim and I both experienced COVID this year, and it was NOT a big deal.
  6. Jim and I are older, with a few more aches and pains, but we are healthy and happy.
  7. My mom made the move with us and is now settled into a wonderful place that serves her with God’s love and God’s priorities.
  8. Life is expensive but usually well worth the price!
  9. We have moved to a new city, made new friends, and yet still love our other friends too.
  10. We continue to hear from friends in Israel who are doing fine in terrible circumstances.

Those were the big things that came to mind, but there are SO MANY seemingly small moments of life that God worked to create the circumstances listed above. I am thinking of the phrase “God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.” That has been true even when our circumstances weren’t that good! 

When I struggle to praise God 

We all have so much for which we can offer God praise. We also have a list of things we wish God would change or fix. 

Somewhere in everyone’s life a loved one isn’t walking with God. Somewhere in everyone’s life a loved one isn’t doing well, isn’t happy, isn’t safe, or isn’t content. God is good all the time, but we aren’t. We aren’t good all the time because we aren’t always good, always perfect, always godly. Only God can be good all the time. 

Some years our list of blessings is easier to write. Other years need more than two minutes. 

Every November can be a month of praise 

I was writing the entries for Wisdom Matters for the month of November. I had completed about one-third of the entries when I highlighted each one and hit “delete.” (THAT, by the way, is a PAINFUL thing for any writer to do!) I was getting November all wrong. I just wish God had brought that up a bit sooner. Or, maybe I just wasn’t listening to his leadership in the beginning. 

I had been struggling to write before I hit delete. After I hit the delete key, the ideas flowed. I hope you will get the app and listen, even if just to November. God led me to rewrite so that I could talk about the blessings of offering our praise to God. 

Why is praising God essential for our souls? 

I can answer that question in just two verses. Psalm 95:1–2 says, “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!” 

Why can God’s children praise him this month? Why can we praise him regardless of our circumstances? Why should we praise him every day? 

  • God the Father, Son, and Spirit invites us to “come.”
  • God tells us to sing to him because he is always, always listening.
  • God tells us to bring our “noise” to him with joy.
  • God reminds us that he is a rock upon which we can stand and be saved.
  • God tells us that our praise of thanksgiving ushers us into his presence.
  • God welcomes our noisy prayers and songs of praise.
  • God wants to be near you, hear you, encourage you, and enjoy you each day.

November is a month for praise 

Let’s commit these next weeks to the praise of God. Let’s “taste and see that the Lᴏʀᴅ is good” (Psalm 34:8). Let’s enter God’s presence each day with words of praise and words of thanksgiving.  

God doesn’t need our praise. God wants us to praise him for our sakes, not his. When we praise God, we enter his presence, approach his throne, and stand on the rock of our salvation. It is from that rock that our healing and hope will come. 

It’s only two weeks until Thanksgiving. When the table is set and the meal is prepared, may all of us know and say, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). 

November is a perfect month to praise the greatness of God. May our praises be a fragrant offering lifted to our God. May our praises fill us with his joy.

Looking forward to God’s plans

The first questions Christians should ask about the new year should be directed toward our heavenly Father:

  • Father, what do you have planned for 2023?
  • Lord, what are the areas for spiritual growth I should focus on this year?
  • God, you know what the future holds. How should I adjust my life to be ready?
  • Jesus, whom are you calling me to shepherd or influence this next year?
  • Creator God, what are your high and holy goals for me in 2023?

We will look forward to 2023 with joy and anticipation if we see it as time spent with God as we honor and accomplish his purpose in our lives. 

The news vs. the Good News

Television news advises us to think about inflation, upcoming political changes, and how our lives might be impacted by other countries’ choices. It all sounds a bit overwhelming until we realize Who holds the world in his hand. 

It’s good to be aware of world news, but it’s important to govern our lives according to the Good News. The gospel message is the truth that defines our values, our hopes, and our futures. 

Nothing will happen next year that God does not cause or allow. Nothing will happen next year that God cannot bless or redeem for his higher purpose. That said, God accomplishes much of his will for our world by using those who walk according to his plans rather than their own.  

Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lᴏʀᴅ establishes his steps.” It’s always been true that people make plans, but the success of our plans will depend on whether or not we have submitted our plans to God’s will.

Christians have been created to accomplish great things

It is impossible to know what God has planned for 2023, but it is possible to know we are to play an important role in whatever those plans will be. 

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” 

God already knows what we will accomplish next year that will serve his kingdom purpose for our lives. We just need to walk with Jesus so that we can walk in God’s perfect plans.

Looking forward to God’s plans

We can look forward to 2023 because God is in charge of the future and there are a LOT of God’s people who stand ready to allow their lives to be his “workmanship.” There are good works to accomplish that God will reveal as we walk with him. 

I hope you have been able to download the Foundations app (all Android users can click here to download the app) that will enable you to receive Wisdom Matters on your cell phone each evening. It is our gift to each of you and anyone else who wants it. 

I wanted to help people spend—and end—each day with a word from God. This world doesn’t make it easy for us to focus on God’s priorities. I hope receiving a short message from God’s word each evening will quiet the roar of the world and help us submit our lives to the higher truths of the Bible. “At the end of the day . . . wisdom matters.” 

Together, we’re accomplishing good work

Finally, it is the end of the year, and, as always, it is time for me to ask all of you who read this blog post to consider helping our ministry do what we do.  

God’s word is the foundation for our lives, for our walk with God. I serve this ministry because I know God has called me to produce content that helps people apply God’s word of truth to their daily lives. God’s word is always our best counsel, our best advice, and our best guidance, and I want to help people come to know and trust God in deep, life-transforming ways. 

Every gift matters. Your gift matters. And we serve a God who blesses us now and eternally for living his high calling for our lives. We are “God’s workmanship,” and we have been re-created by our faith in Christ Jesus to do “good works.” 

I won’t share our statistics, but they tell one simple story: We are helping a LOT of people know God, trust Jesus, and walk with him in their daily lives. Will you help us accomplish our good work? 

You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

I, and all of us who serve at Denison Ministries, are grateful to those of you who make our ministry possible!  

I wish ALL of you a blessed 2023!
God’s plan is perfect, and we look forward to seeing it unfold.
With gratitude . . . 

 

A Christmas gift

Christmas is almost here. 

Even as I type, I am picturing my blog readers doing so many different things. 

Maybe you are sitting in an airport waiting for your flight. 

Maybe you are checking emails right before you start completing the to-do list for the day. 

Maybe you are remembering past Christmas seasons and wishing this one was more like those. 

Whatever your day and your Christmas look like this year, you can know that I pray your Christmas day will be filled with the holy Presence of Christ.

A gift for you

I would like to give you a Christmas gift that I, and several of us at the ministry, have been working on. 

When you have a moment, I want you to go to the App Store on your cell phone and download my gift to you: the new (and free) Foundations Bible app!

My Christmas gift to you is something that will last all year and is called Wisdom Matters.

The readings don’t officially begin until January 1, but I wanted my readers to have advanced notice!

What is Wisdom Matters?

I did some checking and found that almost everyone checks their phone at night before going to bed. Wisdom Matters is an evening devotional I would love for you to have at the end of each day. 

In fact, the “tagline” says, “At the end of the day . . . Wisdom Matters.”

God called me to write and record Wisdom Matters because we need to end our days going to sleep with an important thought about God. Wisdom Matters is a devotional written to help us know God at deeper levels by offering us a meditation from his word each evening. 

In many ways, writing these devotions has been a blessing for me. On a personal level, this year has been intense, and dwelling on the timeless wisdom and truth of God’s word has been therapeutic. I was fascinated as I wrote how absolutely relevant God’s word remains thousands of years later. Wisdom matters most because it is timeless, God-authored truth.

We don’t lack “words” in our world, and information is always one “google” away.  But how do we process the information we learn? Do facts alone drive our decisions, or does God have a higher plan? 

I have often said, “In a sea of information, wisdom matters.”  

I want you, my readers, to know about Wisdom Matters first. Please receive this gift from me this Christmas. 

Beginning January 1, a new devotion will arrive on your phone around 8 p.m. CST, and maybe you can get in the habit of making God’s word part of your final thoughts for the day.  

I believe he will speak his thoughts and even author a dream or two if you do. He has certainly been speaking to my heart as I write these!

I wish you a blessed and Merry Christmas

Whatever your Christmas season looks like this year, know that I, and all of us who serve the Foundations ministry, want to wish you a joy-filled and Christ-centered Christmas. Jesus truly is the most wonderful gift we could ever receive! 

James 1:17 reminds us that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  

“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

We truly wish you a blessed and merry Christmas!