WELCOME

By Sandy Ditoro

Happy New Year! We hope you will enjoy our new series of devotional articles that we begin today. The theme for this series was suggested by Geneva Bookman. She thought it would be a good topic with which to begin the New Year. Our new theme is called: Don't Look Back!

We will examine a number of areas where we are told to not look back but to press forward and to begin anew. I enjoyed gathering the scriptures for this series and I am excited about presenting the articles our writers have prepared. (PS: If you ever have an idea for a series topic, please email me and let me know.)

Don't look back!   How do you feel about the summary of your life in 2006? Are you pleased with the decisions you made last year? Did you stick with all of last year's New Year's resolutions or are you saying to your more than ample self,  "Hey, do you realize if I had stuck with that diet I started last January 1st I could be skinny by now!"

Well, now is the time to forget about all the broken New Year's resolutions of last year and the year before and to make new resolutions for this year! Don't beat yourself up over the things you didn't accomplish last year. It is useless to do so because you can not go back in time and do them.

What you can do and must do is mend the fences you broke down last year. Say, "I'm sorry" or "Thank you" to the people in your life you need to say these things to. Most of all, it is important that you repent of things in your life that need to be repented of and to ask God to forgive you! Begin the New Year in a right relationship with our Father!

Let your New Year's Resolution be to grow in the fruit of the Spirit in 2007.  Begin by memorizing them! They are: