Well Friends,

This year is winding down.

I appreciate you visiting and reading and commenting.

This has been a very good year.
At the beginning of 2006 I had no idea that I would be:

• starting a blog in May
• starting a new church in June
• going on the radio in July
• leaving the Praise Fellowship Church building in October

You see we can make our plans and we should but remember we’re not alone. We have a partner. A friend in the god-head. We have Jesus as our savior, the Father as our father and the Holy Spirit as our earthly partner and helper. He is the one who made these “extra” and “unplannable” things happen.

Make it your aim to get to know Him better this new year. One of the main reasons Jesus came was to make way for the Holy Spirit to live in you.

I hope that you are doing well. If you’re not let me know, we can pray for you. We’ve seen awesom things happen as we’ve prayed. God is available to help. We can call on Him together. He loves to show up and do His stuff.

Love ya
Joe

Hey Folks,
Just testing out posting a picture on my blog. Here’s two of the most beautiful ladies in my life. Natalie holding JuliAnna. 

Yesterday at church we made the big announcement:

We are changing the name of our church.

We have been Empower since we started in June but the Lord has been ministering to us in several ways that we needed to change the name.

So starting on January 1st, 2007 we will be called
Family Life Christian Center.

As I was seeking counsel on this one comment from my brother was that the name Empower hits the head while Family hits the heart.

People need family and we can give them that.
People need to belong and they can belong here.
People need to be loved and they get that here.

We’re so blessed to be in this ministry. People are being loved, helped, taught, trained. Its exciting to see and hear the things the Lord is doing in people’s lives.

We also got a new web domain
www.familylife.cc
It still hits http://www.empowerchicago.org but we’ll be renovating the site for the name change and the new year.

God bless you all.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Joe

PS: Check out yesterday’s messages on heart motivations and praise.

We started a series this past Sunday in the offering messages on “Getting Your New Year Started Right”.

New Year’s resolutions generally fail because we often wait until the last minute to make them and don’t give it real serious thought.

When you make a resolution you are making a firm decision to change something in your life.

Most often it’s a habit that you want to change. If you understand how habits are programmed into you then it will be easier to understand what you have to do to reprogram yourself.

Remember you are self-programmable.

In Romans 12:2 it talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Another way to say that is “If you reprogram your thinking then your habits can change.”

However habits are programmed into your subconscious, they are deep-seated in you. That is why they are so hard to change.

Habits can be your best friends if you have the right ones. Its the wrong ones that can do you in.
Habits are God’s way to destress your life. Habits let your subconscious make a decision according to the way you’ve programmed it and accepted as the way that is right or the way you want to go.

But your subconscious doesn’t want to give them up, its programmed to stay the same until completely convinced to change.

• Dreams can reprogram your subconscious.
• Dramatic life-events can.
• Biblical meditation can.
• Repetition can.

I would add one more:

• Hearing God’s voice can.

Some of these habit-altering, sub-conscious reprogramming tools are under your control, some are not.

You can pray for God to speak to you in dreams or by His voice to help you change. However, you don’t want to pray for a dramatic life-event.

I recommend that you spend your time using biblical meditation and repetition.

Step #1:
Define your problem. Write it down. Think about it. Pray about it. Write it down as accurately as you can. Ask God if you’ve got it written out correctly.

Step #2:
Spend sufficient time in prayer and Bible reading to get a solid answer to your problem. I recommend you come up with a list of scriptures that directly speak to your situation.

Step #3:
Meditate on those scriptures. If you don’t know how to do biblical meditation just think about what you do when you worry. You imagine the problem from every angle and mull over every thing that could go wrong.

In biblical meditation take a scripture and begin to imagine it. Try to view it from every angle. Just like when you’re worrying. Try to imagine every possible thing that could go right in your life if this scripture was fully implemented in your life.

Step #4:
Change your actions. Based on the scriptures you’ve meditated you’ll know some new actions to replace your old habits with. Begin to do those new actions. Over time they will become habit.

If you get this process started now in December, by the time January 1 comes you’ll already be on your way.

Love ya
Joe