a fresh start...

Whats going on everyone,

I hope you have a better understanding of why we celebrate Christmas from reading our last devotional. We explained how Jesus is the reason for the season and how God caused Him to be born for our salvation. And you know what makes it so crucial...accepting His salvation is FREE!!! How many things can you say are free. Are you kidding me. In America that would be hard to find. But the greatest thing you could ever have, which is salvation, is a free gift from Jesus to us. What a Christmas present!!! I will take that any day of the week. I will say one more thing before my next thought. It is free to accept salvation but it is not free to live in. You have to pay a price to keep your salvation and retain your ticket to heaven. The bible says..."work out your salvation with fear and trembling". I know this might be hard for some of you out there but we don't sugar coat anything on these devotionals. We keep it real. It is hard living for Jesus but it is hard to live without Him also. He gives us all a choice and He is an absolute gentleman about it. Well, this is actually the official last devotional of the year before we begin the new year of devotionals next week. If you had a great 2007 then I encourage you to have an even better 2008. Don't ever stay or be happy with being at a certain place. Always strive to be growing. Anything that stops growing is usually a sign that its dead. The bible talks about going from..."glory to glory being conformed to the image of His son" This pretty much is saying that we go from step to step or from level to level becoming more and more like Jesus. Who better to become like than Jesus Himself? You can do it. The bible says you can. If you didn't have such a great 2007 I want you to forget your past and tell yourself that you will have a fresh start in 2008. Out of all the miracles and signs that one of the great men of the bible performed there was one thing that he said he was really good at. Pay attention because this will change your life. This man built many churches, traveled the world telling many people about Jesus, and he wrote more than half of the new testament that we read in the bible today. And he said that he was expert at one thing and it was this, "...forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus". What he meant by this statement was that he was good at forgetting his past and he also became good at reaching for the good that was in the future. He had to learn how to forget his past because his past was horrible. He killed many Christians in the past and he said many bad things about the church. Can you imagine having a past like that and then having a real experience with Jesus Christ that caused him to want to promote the very thing that he tried to kill? Man, I think thats kind of crazy. Anyway, I encourage you to forget your past and declare that 2008 will be a fresh start. A start that will begin an awesome future for you. I also suggest that you go and buy yourself maybe about 4 new pair of sunglasses because your future is that bright. Not because your cool (just kidding you guys are pretty cool) but because your future is brighter than you could ever imagine. Until next time have a happy new year.

Chow.
Mickey Santiago