Goals for the New Year and Perseverance

photo credit pqhobbit.wordpress

Happy New Year! 


I am unreasonably excited over this new year which is not my usual attitude. 


Most years I think, "It's just another day," but this year I'm really feeling a change in the air and I am full of hope...





...hope to see some things I've been praying for come into fruition!
...hope to see some things I've wanted to change in my own life happen!
...hope to see God show Himself in a big way in the area where we live!

I've been getting together with my prayer partners on Mondays and praying and we have been SO blessed! We have been touching God. God has been touching us.  We've been having 'church!'

We've been receiving insights from the Holy Spirit and words of knowledge as we've prayed and have been so encouraged to pray these Words over our loved ones. We have become very excited over praying together and I believe it's been the catalyst for all the other good things.  

As 2015 came to an end, we each made a goal list - spiritual goals, personal health goals, family goals, home improvement goals, financial goals - and shared them each other and prayed over them. We met with our husbands to make these goal lists. And we have each been delighted that our husbands were very excited over this! We are going to update each other as we go into the new year.  

One of my goals was to do a 40 day Word fast again.  And someone said, "Let's start now!"  I honestly hesitated. And then I realized that I could put it off forever and just never do it again. Because very honestly, I've thought about doing it again for years. And maybe I need to do it permanently.

So on Monday, we started our 40 day Word fast. No television, no secular books, no secular radio, no news, no Facebook except messages, etc.  Nothing but the Word of God and things that teach about God.  None of us needed to do much about our iphones - I never usually know where mine is! lol

This is the morning of day three and I want to tell you that I can honestly feel the difference. Ephesians 2:2 makes reference to Satan as the Prince of the power of the air.  I've often wondered what that means. But I want to say that there's a lot of scientific evidence that the electrical waves in our world, that we're exposed to so much, have a negative effect on our health and brain.

I don't know about that but I want to say that taking the television out of my life has caused my brain to 'quiet.'  I feel like the buzzing is gone. I'm always careful not to watch any occult, violence or immorality on television but I also want to confess that I've been a fan of some shows that I knew I shouldn't watch. Very honestly, there's really not much on TV that does not promote immorality and violence and the worst, demonic activity.  

And I want to take all of that out of my life.  But I even think it's more than that. I heard a wonderful man named Henry Gruver speak a few years ago and he said something that I really witnessed to.  He said that there are demonic spirits attached to television shows and even commercials that have assignments to attach themselves to us.  

I always knew that things like Harry Potter, The Twilight Series and such had a demonic assignment but he also told us that all the Pokeman characters were actually oriental gods!  It makes so much sense when you see children and ADULTS become crazed over some of these things that there's something going on!  I pay attention whenever there's something that sweeps our world.

But now I'm thinking that even if you only watched Christian television that the actual TV affects you negatively; changes the electrical impulses in your brain, causes you not to be able to hear God clearly. I want to hear God clearly.  I want to be in His Presence continually.  I need His Wisdom for every minute of my life.  I want to be His voice on this earth and I can't do that if I'm not continually in intercourse with Him.

Luke 18:8b keeps coming to my mind. "... when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"  

Are we as Christians really any different than others?  When people meet you, is it quickly apparent that you're a believer in Christ.  If they visited our homes, would they notice the difference?  Some Christians believe that healing and miracles and the gifts are not for today.  I know that they are and we are not manifesting the Holy Spirit because of the impurity in our lives.

I can say that I am different in a lot of ways. But I don't just want to be slightly different.  I want Smith Wigglesworth different!  I want to impact the world around me for Christ.  I don't want to fit in.  I want to be Jesus-peculiar! 

I have received a Word from the Lord that I will lay hands on the sick and they will be healed, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will rise to life.  I will heal mental illness and ADHD and autism and I want to see that Word come to pass!  I have experienced this in my walk with Christ but I want more - so much more! Mary, the mother of Jesus, said, "Let it be done to me accordingly to your Word."  We have a choice to make; to yield ourselves totally to His will or to just keep living our lives in mediocrity.  I don't want to do that anymore.

So in the next 37 days, I am praying to be radically cleansed, radically changed, radically transformed!  

God said two things to me for this new year:  Radical obedience and a pure heart.  Those are my primary goals for 2016!

I saw some bloggers choose a 'word' for this year.  Mine is PERSEVERANCE! I think it's going to take some perseverance to reach my goals.  The new year's joke is that we always start the new year with goals and we quit around January 12th.  I am blessed to have some prayer partners, and you!, to keep me accountable!

love and blessings for a glorious 2016~