God Exists and He Has Spoken: A New Year Focus

A new year brings a new opportunity to develop a new series, a new program, a new outreach or something else that may prove refreshing and revitalizing for your ministry. However, I have chosen this year to renew a focus in my areas of ministry, and I would like to encourage you to do the same.

In reading Genesis 1 this morning, I was struck by the truth that God exists, and He has spoken. There are no more basic truths than these that could or should drive our ministry. I want to encourage you with a couple of points as you meditate on these truths:

1. God exists. He is the center of all things. He has created all things for His good pleasure. As pastors and teachers, we can be tempted to view our ministries as revolving around us and so we can become either prideful or despondent, depending on how things are going at present. When we refocus on the fact that our ministries should revolve around and be dependent on God, we are both humbled and encouraged.

2. God has spoken. We speak a lot. We teach, we preach, we counsel, we exhort, and we encourage. We blog, we write, and sometimes we pontificate. It is easy to focus on the fact that we have spoken. The truth is, God has spoken, and what He says is what people need to hear. Our speaking should always be an amplification of His speaking. People should hear what we say, and look past us to how what we said better illumines God.

This new year, refocus on the fact that we serve the living God and that He has spoken to us in His Word. What a privilege we have!