This week we will turn a page on our calendars. A new year will begin. Someone said an optimist stays up until midnight to greet the New Year. A pessimist stays up to be sure the old year departs. There are other differences between optimists and pessimists. Most churches have both in their membership. My question for both groups is: Is there a word from God for a new year? As a matter of fact there is and it comes from an ancient source. A transition was taking place. As Moses stood on Mt. Nebo and gave his farewell address, Joshua became the leader of God\u2019s people. It was Joshua, not Moses, who would take them into the Promised Land. The Old Testament book of Joshua begins with a message from God to Joshua and continues with Joshua\u2019s message to a people in transition. Joshua\u2019s words are fitting for a new year with all its excitement and uncertainties, its reasons for optimism and for pessimism. \u201cJoshua said to the people, \u2018Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you\u2019.\u201d (Joshua 3:5) As the calendar turns, what do you need to do to \u201csanctify\u201d yourself so the Lord can do wonders in and through you in 2009?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s close this year praying for these global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Joe as he transfers from Kazakhstan to the country of Georgia.
\n\u2022 Pray for T and J and their family. A local newspaper contained a letter against them and their church. The aim of the letter was not only to get them kicked out of the country but also to provoke extremist to harm them. The letter gave their home address.
\n\u2022 Pray for S and A as they seek to raise the last 1\/3 of their support to serve in North Africa.
\n\u2022 Pray for the Missionary Kids (MKs), who will be attending the MK retreat this week in Western Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week we will turn a page on our calendars. A new year will begin. Someone said an optimist stays up until midnight to greet the New Year. A pessimist stays up to be sure the old year departs. There are other differences between optimists and pessimists. Most churches have both in their membership. My…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}