I believe your (and my) success for the new year is directly related to you spending time alone with God.

The Bible says in Hebrews 11 that
He(God) is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

He also promises in Jeremiah 29:13
“If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.”

The most meaningfully successful people I know seek the Lord the most.

The one’s whose success is purposeful and very blessed are the one’s who intentionally set aside time to pursue improving their relationship with God.

I know you’re busy but God is waiting and He’s available to you.

Consider going into your room by yourself, closing the door, kneel down next to your bed and talk to Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Consider taking a day and getting away by yourself to seek Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Consider taking three days off by yourself to pray and discuss your future with Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Open your Bible, read it.

Get a journal, write what you want to say to Him, write down thoughts and impressions you think might be from Him.

• God loves you.
• He’s your Father.
• He’s full of wisdom.
• He’s not holding back.
• He’s not mad at you.
• He loves you.

Go talk to Him.
He’s ready. He’s waiting.

Happy New Year!
Pastor Joe

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During Christmas time people try to be very cheery. MERRY Christmas!

Well some people struggle with that.

One quote I heard this year was
“Happiness doesn’t come from money it comes from relationships.”

In the Bible, the very first thing that God disapproved of was man being alone.
He set about immediately to change it. You should too.

The other night my wife, Nancy, came home from shopping with a few of our kids.
She said something about really needing to spend time with me because she felt lonely.
Now I don’t claim to understand women 🙂 , but I can’t see Nancy being lonely. We have seven children and we spend ALOT of time together.

As soon as she said that, I said, “Nancy, I don’t think that’s you. I think it’s a burden to pray for someone else.”
She said she instantly knew that I was right. She said it was a deep grieving in her gut. Someone hurting really bad.
She spent some time praying in the spirit for them until the burden lifted. Nancy is quite a prayer warrior.
If that was you that she was praying for, be encouraged. God is thinking about you. God agrees with your discontent with being lonely. He wants to change it. He wants it changed.

The other day I was taping a video devotional for the TLN network. One of the devotionals I taped went something like this:
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January 9

Researcher Carolyn Schwartz wanted to see if multiple sclerosis sufferers would benefit from receiving monthly peer-support phone calls from other MS victims. But over time, a surprising trend emerged. While those receiving support calls appeared to gain some mild benefit, the real beneficiaries were those lending a supportive ear. In fact, those who offered support experienced dramatic improvements in their quality of life—several times more so than those they were helping.

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My Friend,
If you’re lonely. Change it. Call someone. Help someone. Get out of those four walls, either physically, via phone, email or snail mail. Reach out. Help someone. You will be quite blessed.
Local nursing homes need volunteers to come and just talk to people.

If you’re lonely reach out to someone else. Don’t wait until they reach out to you.

You’ll be blessed if you do.
Love ya
& MERRY CHRISTMAS
Joe

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For the last year and a half we have had a young lady teaching our children here in our home. She has been a huge blessing. Her name is Rebecca Collins.
It’s been amazing how much she’s helped us. The kids love her. So do we.

But today was her last day of teaching the kids. She’s going to the mission field. Her life-long dream is being fulfilled on December 27th.
She’ll be home-schooling for a family in Guatemala and helping in an orphanage.
God has mighty plans for this young lady. Keep your eyes open for her.
If you want to get involved in her work financially go to our website and make a donation. She doesn’t know that I’m doing this, but I think this would be a huge blessing to get behind her and bless her and the ministry she’s working with.
You can stay up to date with her ministry by viewing her blog.
Keep her in prayer.
Watch her works and watch her faith, maybe God will have you follow suit.
Be blessed

Joe

20819

As a pastor I have a strong desire to see people grow and mature in the Lord.
This really affects all areas of life so I don’t hold back on talking about all sorts of things when I’m teaching. Paul mentioned something like this in the following verse:

Acts 20:20
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.

This verse gives me great liberty in making applications of the word of God in all kinds of ways. Any way that would be helpful in maturing people.

Starting in January at church I’m going to start teaching the basics of Christianity.
I’m going to use an outline from Andrew Wommack’s Discipleship Evangelism course.

But I believe Christian maturity is not shown by how much you know or by how gifted you are but by how you act. Specifically how well you operate in the Fruit of the Spirit as outlined in

Galatians 5:22,23.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.

Now I have been doing an offering message during most services since I started pastoring but in the new year I’m going to switch that and do a Character Message before the offering. I’ll start with the Fruit of the Spirit but then move into all different types of character qualities that we should have.

I’m pretty excited about this because it’s on me just like any time the Holy Spirit is on me to do something. I believe He(the Holy Spirit) has a bunch that He wants to share with us.

So I invite you, if you’re in the Chicago area, come check us out at the Wheaton Bowl 10am Sundays. If you’re not local hit us on the web at our church site, you can listen to all of my sermons or radio shows there. Make it a regular habit. I believe its time for Christians to grow up and become mature. The Lord may be calling you to this. Are you ready? We are. Join us.

Pastor Joe

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