Made New

Jan 9 – Jan 15

Don’t Let Your Mistakes Keep You Down

By Michael Youssef, Ph D.  01/15/21

Read Numbers 20:12-13.

Every new year, people step into January with the best of intentions. Maybe it’s fitness. They say, “This is the year I finally get in shape.” Maybe it’s finances: “This is the year I finally get out of debt.” But then sometime in February or March, the will to exercise is overpowered by the desire to sleep in, and an unexpected expense balloons the credit card bill.

These sorts of goals are good things to pursue, but the most important resolution you can make as you enter 2021 is to give yourself more completely to Jesus Christ. This is a resolution that will never fail because Jesus has promised to be with us always. You may stumble, but if you have been made new in Christ, the Spirit of God will be with you to lift you up.

Just look at the Bible—every bit of it God-breathed (see 2 Timothy 3:16)—and it’s filled with broken, imperfect people. God lets us see these great men and women of faith, warts and all, because He wants us to be encouraged by them. He wants us to see that if these sinners overcame by His power, we can overcome too. If they received victory after suffering defeat, so can we.

Moses wasn’t a perfect man. But he was loved by God—and God worked through him mightily. So don’t let your mistakes keep you down. Rest in the fact that He has made you new in Christ—and decide today to give everything you have for His glory.

Prayer: Father, Your love for me is astounding. I am in awe of Your grace and mercy. Thank You for making me new. May I live in the freedom You have purchased for me by Christ’s blood so that You might be glorified. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them'” (Numbers 20:12).