What’s NEXT?
It’s a new year… As we begin again, I think it’s always helpful to ask this question…
What is NEXT for you?
Another way to ask the question may be…
What do you want to be true of you at the END of 2019?
Grow
For a while now, my son has had one goal… to outgrow his mother!
This past year my son turned 12 & like a lot of kids his age, he’s getting taller every day. All my kids, they love to see how much they’re growing. So in our laundry room, we have a place by the door where we measure them and mark their height. We’ll put the date and their name by their mark so they can see how much they’ve grown.
Measuring at the doorpost has been fun, but my son lost interest in that when he realized it was more fun to measure himself against his mom!
Slowly but surely he was catching up to her. And then, in December, this happened…
All of us are growing in one direction or another!
The question isn’t, Will we grow? We will.
The only question is, HOW will we GROW this year?
What’s NEXT for you this year?
How will you grow this year?
Another way to ask the question is: What’s NEXT for you this year?
What’s next in your marriage? How do you want to grow in your marriage?
What’s next in your parenting? How do you want to grow in your parenting?
What’s next for you in your profession? How do you want to grow in your profession?
What’s next for you in your faith? How do you want to grow in your faith?
How are you going to Live Different this year? How are you going to live, believing in Jesus in such a way, that it changes the way you live?
[Tweet “How are you going to live, believing in Jesus in such a way, that it changes the way you live?”]Here’s the amazing thing about faith… you never reach the end of your growing. There’s always a NEXT step. There’s always a way to go deeper. To grow in your relationship with God.
The Red Letters
It was around 1899 when a man by the name of Louis Klopsch, editor of Christian Herald magazine, decided to publish the very first Red Letter Bible.
This was innovative in his time. It had never been done before. He wanted to make it easy for everyone to see the words of Jesus & be able to learn from Jesus in scripture.
So, with the help of scholars around the world, he printed scripture with the words of Jesus in RED. And not only that, but he put a red asterisk by all the scriptures in the Old Testament that pointed to Christ, so that you could see the red thread throughout all of scripture pointing to JESUS!
That was 120 years ago.
I’m wondering, what if we took what Louis Klopsch started 120 years ago and what if we decided to lean into the Red Letters, the words of Jesus, together in 2019?
Maybe some of the best advice I’ve ever received was simply this… BEGIN with the END in mind.
[Tweet “BEGIN with the END in mind.”]What if, at the end of 2019, we could look back and see, really see, how we have been shaped and transformed, how we have GROWN from leaning into the Red Letters together?
At Riverside Church of Christ, the church I’m blessed to be a part of, we’re doing a Red Letter Challenge this month. I’d love for you to join us this month as we read the Red Letters together.
You can download the Red Letter Challenge here.
You can also download it here.
May God bless us as we seek to listen and follow the teachings of Jesus together.
