JANUARY 2015
Dear Loved One,
If I could engrave a single phrase over the door of the new year we’ve just begun, I’d choose this one, spoken by the Lord in Isaiah 63:4:
“The year of My redeemed has come” (v. 4).
That phrase perfectly expresses God’s heart for us as believers in 2015. It’s prophesying to us today just as it prophesied thousands of years ago about the redemption God would bring to mankind through Jesus. It’s announcing a glorious new year of divine fulfillment. A year in which God’s redemptive power is to be revealed in our lives in fresh and marvelous ways.
This is not to be a year of maintaining the status quo.
Far from it!
The Lord has remarkable workings of His Spirit planned for us in the days and months ahead. He’s prepared distinct paths for each of us to walk in—paths of fruitfulness and purpose, paths of advancement and tremendous triumph. And He’s preparing us for them by saying to us anew, at this particular moment in time:
You are My redeemed. I paid the price on Calvary to break the back of the enemy that has obstructed My purpose for your life. I have conquered the darkness that has tried to encroach upon you. Rise up and rejoice. You are My redeemed and your year has come!
“Pastor Jack,” you might say, “are you sure those words apply to me? Are you certain the Lord has good things planned for my life in particular in 2015?”
Yes, the Bible confirms it. It says you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He has already prepared for you (Eph. 2:10). It says God always leads you in triumph and that He crowns the year with His goodness and His paths drip with abundance (2 Cor. 2:14, Ps. 65:11).
So I can say without hesitation, straight from the Scriptures, the Lord has wonderful things in store for you this year. He simply needs you to open the door to them.
That’s why I’m writing you today. I want to share with you something the Lord ministered to my heart about this some time ago. I want to give you three Biblical keys you can use to open the door to all the redemptive blessings God desires to pour out upon you in 2015.
The first key is this: Don’t Look Back.
As the Lord said to the Israelites in Isaiah 43:18-19:
Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Is. 43:18-19)
The Hebrew word translated remember refers to more than just having a recollection of something. It conveys the idea of reenacting or commemorating it. So in this passage, the phrase “do not remember” addresses the horrible human tendency people have to rehearse and relive the negative events of the past.
We’ve all fallen prey to this tendency at one time or another. We’ve all gotten trapped in mental ruts by repeatedly replaying and reciting the disappointments of yesterday…and last year…and the year before.
I picture it like the slot cars my grandkids used to receive (and their parents used to play with) at Christmas. Those cars always took the same course. They went round…and round…and round in circles. Stuck in the same old slot, they never went anywhere new.
The Lord doesn’t want us to live slot car lives! He wants to lift us out of the rut of the past and onto the highway He’s prepared for us. He wants us to get off yesterday’s dead-end street and onto a brand new road. But to do so we must look forward. We must stop looking back and talking about the past. That’s the first key to opening the door to a wonderful year.
The second key is this: Wake up to your new day!
As Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
Why do we, as believers who’ve already been made spiritually alive in Christ need to “arise from the dead”? Why do we need to wake up?
Because, over time, the atmosphere of this sinful world can lull us to sleep. As we live surrounded by it day after day, we can actually acclimate to its spiritual deadness. We can begin to allow that deadness to numb our spiritual sensitivity and seep into our own lives. As a result, we can find ourselves tolerating things we know are not pleasing to the Lord.
Our speech, for instance, might start to be tainted by the world’s coarse, irreverent tone. We might become more comfortable with profanity and cease to feel the sting we once felt in our soul when we heard the name of Jesus used as a curse rather than in praise. Forms of entertainment we used to find distasteful might seem more palatable to us.
Certainly, I’m not suggesting we should live totally cut off from this contemporary culture. But we do need to ask ourselves at times: What am I allowing into my home through the television these days? What kinds of movies am I watching? What music is bouncing off the walls of my car?
The milestone of a new year always offers the opportunity to take a fresh inventory of such things. So I encourage you to take advantage of it. As you turn the page on the calendar, shake off any spiritual sleepiness that has crept in upon you. Wake up to a new day because that’s the second key to unlocking all God has in store for you.
The third key is this: Expect the Lord to come into your world this year.
Expect Him to move in your life and your circumstances, and to manifest His power in a special way. Adopt an attitude of joyful anticipation and believe that Christ is about to invade your private world with His transforming power. Be confident that His redemptive purpose is advancing in your direction and He is coming into your situation to change what needs to be changed.
Don’t approach your future with a downcast gaze and a discouraged demeanor. Fix your eyes on Jesus, and “Look up, lift up your head, because your redemption draws near” (Lk. 21:28).
Loved one, God truly has prepared a supernaturally redemptive year for you in 2015, and I desire with all my heart for you to experience everything He has planned. So I want to send you two very special thank you gifts for your generous support this month: The book “From Dream to Destiny” by my dear friend Robert Morris, and my CD series “Possessing Your Tomorrows.”
These two resources will help you launch into this year with fresh spiritual vision. Full of timely scriptural wisdom, they’ll help you find the paths God has mapped out for you in the months ahead. They’ll further equip you to walk out the fulfillment of His dreams for you in this next season of your life. So be sure to read enclosed card and find out how to receive these important gifts.
These are such exciting days for all us—including those of us here at Jack Hayford Ministries. The Lord has given us clear direction and we’re planning some new things for 2015 that will help us reach and impact more people all around the world. I’ll be sharing more details with you soon. Until then, please keep us in your prayers and know that all of us here are thanking God for you and praying for this year to be your very best one yet.
Rejoicing in the Lord,
Pastor Jack
From Jack Hayford Ministries
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