10 "New Year" Questions
Happy 2024, Foxworth First Baptist Church!
As we begin a new year, I encourage you to take a look at this article by Donald S. Whitney [accessed on 12/27/2023 at https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-questions-to-ask-at-the-start-of-a-new-year/ ].
10 Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year
Consider the Direction of Your Life
Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.
Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.
The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.
- What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
- What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
- What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
- In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
- What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
- What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
- For whose salvation will you pray more fervently this year?
- What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
- What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
- What single thing that yo plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?
The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question...Let’s evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “the plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Prov. 21:5). But in all things let’s also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Be friendly to those around you (be reminded of what friendship really means). Be faithful to the LORD and His ways (and faithful to His Bride: the Church). Be focused on your mission and the day that will come when this will be no more and we will be like Him!
**Thanks! My family and I have been so blessed by the gifts you have offered us during this Christmas season. We are, once again, overwhelmed with your generosity of Christmas gifts & kind words. Your kindness and love toward us continues to encourage us. Thank you for your generosity, and thank you for loving my family! We love you all, and we are excited to start 2024, serving the Lord by serving alongside you! It is my joy to serve the LORD by serving as your pastor!**
Pastor loves you, church!
- Bro. T