Making a Fresh Start, Part 5

So far we've looked at:

S - Stop making excuses

T - Take stock

A - Act in faith

R - Refocus

Today we wrap it up with the final letter: T - Trust God

I must Trust God to help me succeed. Depend on Him, not on yourself. You've already proven you can't do it on your own. That's why you failed. Some people just don't get it. They stumble and fall and then they get up and say, "I'll just try harder!" It's like you go up to a wall and bang your head against it and the wall doesn't fall down. You try it again and Bang! Again. You keep doing it thinking, "Maybe it will fall over this time." That's the definition of insanity _ doing the same over and over and over and expecting different results. You can't change on your own. You don't get a fresh start by trying. You get a fresh start by trusting.

Zechariah 4:6 (NCV) says, "You will not succeed by your own strength or power but by My Spirit, says the Lord." The secret of success isn’t trying, it’s trusting. Trusting God. Would you like to wipe the slate clean? Have you ever thought "I'd like to redesign my life from the ground up"? Who hasn’t thought, "I wish I could just go back and start over"?

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) addresses that. It says, "What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!" God specializes in new beginnings. Jesus Christ has the power to do that. It’s the chance to start over. A fresh start. God says, "I don't want you to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to give you a whole new life."

God takes the negatives in your life and turns them into a positive by making a cross. Jesus Christ was hung up for your hang-ups. He died on the cross for everything you feel bad about. He was crucified between two thieves so you could stop crucifying yourself over those past failures. That's called grace.

You say, "But I’m not sure I deserve that." Let me clear that up for you. You don’t deserve it. None of us does. You say, "Sounds too easy." It is easy. Why does everything have to be hard? God didn’t want it to be hard, He wants you to be forgiven, not frustrated. Forgiveness, grace and a brand new beginning are all God’s gifts to us. The question is, what will you do with those gifts? My suggestion is to receive them into your life and begin over again!

"But I’ve made so many bad choices and so many mistakes." Listen, God is far more concerned with your future than He is with your past! The past can’t be changed, but the future hasn’t been written yet. When you make a fresh start it’s like God giving you a clean slate to begin again.

Need a fresh start (and who doesn’t from time to time)? Take the final step here. Trust God. He won’t let you down!!

Making a Fresh Start, Part 4

This morning we're moving on in the series on how to make a new start, utilizing the acronym, START. So far we've looked at:

S - Stop making excuses

T - Take stock

A - Act in faith

So today we move to: R - Refocus

If I want to get going again, if I want a fresh start, I need to change the way I think. Proverbs 4:23 (GNT), "Be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your thoughts." The way you think, determines the way you feel. And the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change your actions change the way you think and it will inevitably change the way you act. If you are acting in a depressed, discouraged way as we start this new year, it's because you're thinking depressed, discouraged thoughts. That's your choice. You don't have to think those thoughts. If you're acting in fearful, worried ways it's because you're thinking fearful, worried thoughts. Change the way you think because it effects everything else in your life.

Romans 12:2 (NIV) says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

If I have to refocus my thoughts to start over to get a fresh start, that means I have to stop thinking some old patterns. Let go of those things you regret that have happened in your life. There are mistakes, failures, bad, dumb decisions. But every time you think them over and over again, you're just reinforcing them in your mind. Your past is past! It's over, done. It's never going to be with you again. The book is closed, the door is shut. You have to change your mind and let go and get rid of those painful, hurtful memories of shame and guilt and other things.

How do you do that?

First, confession. Confess it to God and leave it with Him. You were never designed to carry it around, so leave it with Him.

You say, "I've confessed to God but I still feel guilty. How do I get rid of a painful memory?" That’s the second step:

Replace it.

If you say, "I'm not going to think about it! I'm not going to think about it!" What are you doing the whole time? Thinking about it. Stop focusing on what you don't want and start focusing on what you do want. Replace those memories by thinking about something else.

What's the best thing to focus on? God's word. The truth. Psalm 1:1-3 (GNT) says, "Happy are those who are always meditating on God's word. They're like trees along a river that do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do." Those are the two things that everybody wants in the new year. We all want to be happy and we all want to succeed. The antidote, the answer, the way we get those is the phrase right in the middle - "... meditating on God's word." That's the answer. The more you meditate on God's word, the more happy and successful you'll be. It's a promise from God.

What does it mean to meditate? Meditation is not just put your mind in neutral, sit in a lotus position and go, "Ahhmmmm!" If you look up the word meditate in a dictionary, it simply means "to focus, to concentrate, to think about something over and over in your mind." As you fill your mind with God's word, it begins to change your mind, your thinking. You stop seeing yourself as other people see you or as you have seen yourself and begin to see yourself as God does.

Philipians 4:8 (NLT) reminds us of what to think about, "Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Replace the old way of thinking with the priorities God says are important.

If there's anything I want to say to you, it's this: Regardless of the failures you've had in your life, there is hope. It is never too late to start over. You are never a failure until you give up. Jesus Christ says you matter to Him and He can make the rest of your life turn out in a whole different way if you give Him the pieces of your life.

Let me give you an incredible verse from the book of Jonah. You know the story of Jonah. God told Jonah to go one direction and do something. He decided he'd do the exact opposite of what God wanted for his life. So God had to take him on a little Mediterranean cruise. After that cruise was over in Jonah 3:1(NIV) it says "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah a second time." I'm so glad for that verse. Aren't you glad we serve the God of the second chance? And of the third, the fourth, the fifth and the tenth, and the 25th and the 100th. He is the God of grace who says, "Come to Me with your brokenness, come to Me with your failures, come to Me with your shame, come to Me with your guilt, come to Me with the messed up things you're done in your life and I can turn them around because I love you and I made you for a purpose."

I encourage you to re-focus, friends.......and let God help you with the process.

Making a Fresh Start, Part 3

Let's continue our series on how to make a new start, utilizing the acronym, START. We started with:

S - Stop making excuses

T - Take stock

Today we move to A - Act in faith

This is the third step in getting a fresh start. Act in faith. If you’re going to make a fresh start you have to launch out into new territory. The Bible says that the key to changing anything is faith. If you want to change your circumstance, it takes faith. If you want to change your personality, it takes faith. If you want to change anything in your life, you have to have some faith.

Jesus says this in Matthew 9:29 (NIV), "According to your faith it will be done to you." That is a very simple, yet powerful statement. That means we tend to get out of life what we expect. What are you expecting? "I think it's going to be another tough year, depressing, rigorous. It's going to be a real bummer." Guess what your year is going to be? A real bummer!

What do you expect for your life? "The same old, same old. Nothing's going to change in my life." Guess what? Nothing's going to change in your life.

The person who says, "I can!" and the person who says, "I can't!" are both right. We get out of life what we expect because "According to your faith it will be done to you."

So you need to start expecting more. Start expecting more of yourself, start expecting more from God, start expecting more out of life. That's the principle of faith. Learn from the failures of the past and move ahead in faith. . Let me give you the real secret of success. Every successful entrepreneur knows this. Real success is built on failure. Failure is the way you become a success. You figure out what doesn't work. When Edison figured out on the 200th or so time, what would make a light bulb stay lit, he did that because he knew 199 ways that didn't work. You never call it a failure in your life. Call it an education. You learn from it.

You may have heard about a guy by the name of Bill Gates. He runs this little company called Microsoft and he’s supposed to be some kind of genius because he's the richest man in the world so he must be the smartest man in the world. Anybody who knows anything about Microsoft knows they never get it right the first time. They get it right on the third time or the fourth time. Windows 1.0 was a fiasco. Windows 2.0 was a disaster. Windows 3.0 was a little bit better. It was Windows 3.1 that became the instant hit. Explorer 1 and 2 programs were terrible. Explorer 3 was a little better. Explorer 4 is pretty solid. Never buy anything from Microsoft the first time they put it out. The genius of Microsoft and Bill Gates is that they don't give up. They put a product out then look around and see what everybody else is doing and add it in. Pretty soon it's better than anything else and the leader. They rarely invent anything on their own. That's why the competition fears them so much. They know they may have started but Microsoft is going to catch up and about the third or fourth time they're going to get it right.

God wants you to get on with your future. Proverbs 16:9 (LB) says, "We should make our plans, counting on God to direct us." Have you made any plans for 2009 yet? When are you going to get around to it? March? Some of you are still planning 2008. It's over! The door's closed on that one.

You're going to go move forward either by design or by default. That means you're either going to have a plan or you’re going to drift through life. God says we should make plans, counting on Him to direct us. He wants you to do your life by design, not by default. The point is you’ll have something to head toward so your life has direction.

There's one thing that will keep you from acting in faith. It's worrying about what other people think. When you worry about what other people think, you're not going to do what God wants you to do. Instead, you’ll do what’s convenient. Don't make that mistake in. Instead, listen to God and act in faith.

Making a Fresh Start, Part 2

We began with the letter S in the word START. S....Stop making excuses. That can be easier said than done sometimes, but it’s necessary. Here the second step:

T - Take stock

If a new start is going to take place you have to know where you’ve been and where you are at the moment. That means I need to evaluate all my experiences. I need to look at what I have left after the failure. If I've had a financial failure, I need to take stock of what finances I have left. If I've had a relational failure, I need to take stock of what relationships I have left. Whatever the failure that necessitates a new start, I need to look and say, "What is God still doing in my life? What are the options? What are my talents? What are my assets? What are my connections?"

Regardless of what's happened in the past, one of the things you have more of today is experience. God wants you to use those experiences, to learn from them and capitalize on them.

Galatians 3:4 (NCV) says, "Were all your experiences wasted? I hope not!" God never wastes an experience. He uses them to shape our lives. He uses personal experiences, vocational experiences, educational experiences, spiritual experiences and most important of all, He uses painful experiences to shape you. So as you take stock of your life in starting over, you need to ask yourself three questions.

1. What have I learned?

I know people 40, 50 years old but they don't have 40 or 50 years of experience. They've had the same year of experience 10 times or 20 times over. They've never learned anything. What did you learn from last year? What are you learning right now? If you don't sit down and think it through, you'll probably end up making the same mistakes over and over again because you didn't learn from them.

2. What are my assets?

What have I got going for me? Do I have my health? Do I have my freedom? Am I mentally sound (those of you who know me know that’s a loaded question)? Do I have friends? Is my family in my corner? Do have a relationship with God and a church family? What do I have that I can count on?

3. Who can help me?

When you need a fresh start, you need somebody by your side _ a friend, an accountability partner, a support person, a support group. Get in a small group. You need other people because you don't start over by yourself after a major failure. You need somebody else to walk along with you.

At my highest weight, I weighed 340 pounds. About 10 years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and the doctor told me to lose weight. I’ve been big all of my life and have fought the battle of the bulge all of my life. But I buckled down and got busy......and lost 120 pounds.

But then I began slipping backwards. My weight went back up, very slowly, until I’d gained back about 60 pounds. I needed a fresh start. So I set out on the weight loss journey again.....and had a modicum of success. I used what I had learned in the past and what I had going for me and made some progress. But then it stopped. I needed some more help.

Enter an incredible friend. I prayed and thought about who to ask to help me, and his name came to mind, so I asked him. He agreed......and has been an encourager in the process. He’s offered great help along the way, challenged me to get more exercise and kept me accountable......and it’s working. Since I asked him to help me I’ve lost more than 25 pounds. There’s still quite a ways to go, and it’s going to take time, but with God’s help and the help of my friend, I’m going to make this happen!

Let me encourage you to Stop making excuses and to Take stock of your experiences. These are the first two steps on the road to a fresh start. And friend.....I know you can do it!