• New Year's resolutions? ... not "without God's help" (Jonathan Edwards)
• With the New Year Come New Resolutions, but How Can We Become Entirely New?
• your resolution - "Divine Intervention" by Lecrae
• Remember last year
• Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
• Birthday reflections ~ "Keep me an infant" (Isaiah 46:1-4)
• we did not choose, He chose us, worthy the Lamb, solus Christus
• no glory to me, o my Savior ~ only because You chose to favor | a spiritual birthday celebration
• don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonnenaufgang_New_South_Wales.jpg / CC BY-SA 3.0

Amos 3:3 (KJV) Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

working in your own flesh
can you expect to be blessed?

each day's work will be manifest
each one's work will be manifest

o, weary child, come to your senses
cast off your works, enjoy My rest

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

be not conceited, be not deceived:
sow to your flesh, death will you reap

have you not heard, listen! take heed!
sow to My Spirit, life will you reap

o, heavy laden, from your labors cease,
take My yoke, drink of My perfect peace

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

did I not tell you to patiently wait,
to take heed and not make haste

if you build with straw and hay
be sure that I will burn it away

your dross must be purely purged
your chaff sifted and blown away

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

for My Name, I am jealous
will you forfeit the inheritance?

for your soul, I am jealous
will you forfeit the inheritance?

did I not become a curse
so you might receive the Promise?

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

have you not been born again?
on yourself how can you still depend?

have you learned so in Christ:
a fleshly walk, vile earthly device?

having tasted, supped and savored,
will you regress to futile labors?

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

My Promise giv'n through Abraham's Seed:
My Holy Spirit – Him do not grieve!

My Promise giv'n to Abraham's seed,
My children, My Holy Spirit receive

open your ears, hear Me plead:
nothing good dwells in thee

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

united in the likeness of My death
the old man now done away with

buried and ris'n with Christ Jesus
to walk in a life of newness

o, My bride, turn from your foolishness
can you be perfected by your flesh?

do we two together walk, are we truly agreed?
if you walk in the flesh, are you born of My Seed?

Galatians 3:1  O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2  Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3  Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4  Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5  Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6  just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7  Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8  And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9  So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10  For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11  Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12  But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14  so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Matthew 11:28  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Naphtali News: God speaking to me about my failures & the one thing needful
Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit
why we need a new heart (Bible reading - Matthew 5)
Bible Reading: Ephesians 4 and 5-The New Man
"Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" | How are we to follow Jesus?
trusting the eagles' wings (reliance on the Holy Spirit)
Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
His Spirit ... His people
Postcards from God in England: sanctification is gloriously messy!
"As your days, so shall your strength be"
"Dependence" by William Cowper
Birthday reflections ~ "Keep me an infant" (Isaiah 46:1-4)
THE SIFTING OF PETER (Longfellow)
Reformation Day: Martin Luther on "How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works"
the converted Pharisee's song: "All my works, all flesh is as grass"

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holding_Hands_shadow_on_sand.jpg  by Mike DelGaudio / CC BY-SA 3.0

  
The following is an excerpt from a letter the Rev. Edward Payson wrote "To a gentleman in a neighboring state, whose hospitality he had enjoyed while on a journey for his health, and who has since yielded to the expostulations of his reverend friend, and is now numbered with the people of God :—"

"Perhaps I ought to address you as a Christian. Perhaps you have, ere this, become a cordial, decided disciple of Christ. I am not entirely without hope that this is the case. Few things could give me more pleasure than to be assured that it is so. If it is, you will need no exhortations from me to pursue a course which you have already found to be 'ways of pleasantness and paths of peace.' If it is, you have already 'tasted and seen that the Lord is good;' you know his goodness, not speculatively, or by report merely, but experimentally; and you can address the Saviour in the language of Peter—'I believe and am sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' But, if this is not the case, if your mind remains in the same state in which I left it, the following hints may possibly prove serviceable:—

"God, as a wise Being, employs means and instruments suited to the work which he designs to perform. He never employs powerful means, or dignified agents, to effect a work which might as well be effected by weak means and feeble agents. He would not employ an angel to do the work of a man; he would not send his only Son to perform works which did not transcend the powers of an angel. Hence we may infer, that, if men or angels could have effected the work of man's redemption, God would not have employed his own Son to effect it; and, if that Son could have effected it in any easier way than by dying on the cross, he would never have consented to die in that manner. Consider, then, my dear sir, how great a work this must have been. To create the world cost Jesus Christ but six days; but to redeem the world cost him thirty-three years, spent in poverty and labor and the shedding of his own blood. How great, then, must have been the evils from which he did all this to redeem us ! How terrible must be the situation of sinners, since he suffered so much to rescue them from it! From the dignity of the Physician, and the costliness of the remedy, we may learn how dangerous, how desperate, was the disease. Only let a man say, with firm conviction,—'My situation was so dangerous, so hopeless, that nothing less than the incarnation and death of God's eternal Son could save me from it,' and he will scarcely remain at rest until he has secured salvation. He will not, cannot rest in a situation so dangerous.

"But these facts and inferences, obvious as they are, we are prone to overlook. There is a species of religion which appears to us much more rational and agreeable than the doctrines of the cross. It is, indeed, little better than deism; for Christ has almost no place in it. It may, therefore, be useful to attend to such passages as these:—'All men shall honor the Son, even as they honor the Father:'—'He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father:'—'He that denieth the Son hath not the Father.' Christ says—'No man cometh to the Father but by me :'—'In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.' Now, if all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, no man can obtain any portion of that fulness without applying to Christ. In a word, Christ's language is—'Without me ye can do nothing.' Never, then, shall we do any thing successfully in religion, unless we apply for and obtain assistance. We must begin with Christ. He is the Author and Finisher of our Faith."

Source: Memoir, Select Thoughts and Sermons of the Late Rev. Edward Payson by Edward Payson (1783-1827) and Asa Cummings, 311-313

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