Step Into the Future: 5 Resolutions For The Best 2024 Resolution ONE

      

Resolution # 1.

Let Go of The Past, Hold onto The Good

All of us had positive AND negative experiences in 2023. I love that a new year has a feeling of a fresh start! But just because the calendar year has started over doesn’t mean it feels that way in our hearts. Hold onto the good that happened in 2023 and let go of the bad.

It’s been said that negative experiences can be 7x more impactful to a person's memory than a positive experience. That being said, I think it’s important to be persistent about having a positive perspective toward the future and, by the grace of God, not focus on the negative. It will take discipline, but what you focus on will manifest! Easier said than done, I know. But the Holy Spirit will also help you if you ask Him! Whether it be disappointment from unmet expectations, grief from loss (of any sort), failure, or anything else, God can meet you right where you’re at and bring healing, hope, and faith to move forward.

How you exit one season is how you’ll enter the next. Finish well! If it’s helpful, write down the good that happened in 2023; keep that at the forefront of your mind. Or write down how God worked things out for good. If it's not good yet, Jesus isn't done (Romans 8:28)! You’ll be surprised how focusing on the good shifts your perspective and outlook on life.  Let God give you hope that 2024 will be even better than 2023!

A New Calendar Year, A Fresh Start

How can you truly experience a “fresh start”?

I'd be amiss to say you can have a fresh start without Christ. He is the ONLY one that TRULY gives FRESH Starts!! So, if you don’t know Him, that’s the best way you can start 2024. Accept Christ into your life and let Him transform and lead you!

“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”-Romans 10:9-10 NKJV

"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." -Matt. 16:24

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”-2 Cor. 5:17 NKJV

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”  Lamentations 3:22-24 ESV

“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. -Isaiah 1:18

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."-Jeremiah 29:13

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him" Psalm 103:11-13

Say this prayer with me:

Dear God, I thank you for a new year. I thank you for Jesus and ask for your forgiveness of my sins and that you renew a right spirit within me. I pray that you will show me what I should hold onto from 2023 and what I should let go of. Please show me how you worked in my life in 2023; even in moments of my life that I perceived as negative, I know you were working. Show me what you were doing behind the scenes and in my heart. Give me clarity and refresh me as you show me your goodness. I lay down any burdens that I am not meant to carry. Holy Spirit, I ask that you remove them from me and give me the grace to let them go. I ask that you renew hope in me as I step into 2024. Thank you for fresh starts, God!