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opening In Proverbs 27:1 we read, “Boast not yourself of tomorrow; for you know not what a day may bring forth.” Psychologist William Morriston reports that 94% of the 3,000 persons he surveyed were enduring today in order to get to tomorrow. Do you know anyone like that? Perhaps you are one of those.

Tomorrow, you’re going on vacation. Tomorrow, you’re going to get the house cleaned. Tomorrow, you’re going to start your diet. Tomorrow, you’re going to balance your checkbook. Tomorrow... tomorrow... tomorrow...

The only problem is tomorrow never arrives. When it gets here, it is today. And today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. It is always today.

What are you worrying about? It’s time to ask His forgiveness and give Him your concern. He is more than able to handle it. Worry is pulling tomorrow’s clouds over today’s sunshine.

Worried about what 2010 will bring? God knows your future. He holds your future. In fact, He is your future! Worry about nothing. Pray about every thing. (Philippians 4:6)

Enter the New Year with Him. Goodness and mercy shall follow you!

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 10.01. Live for God, on purpose, today, tomorrow, and all through the New Year!

courage Take Courage!

Discouraged? Ready for a new year? So many people I have spoken with have told me how they couldn’t wait for 2009 to be over, that it had been the worst year they could remember.

In Jesus‘ earthly ministry, he encountered many people who, just like many of us, were so very discouraged. Some were in the midst of a catastrophe that seemingly had no way out. Some were so sick that there appeared to be no hope. Some were totally distressed, seeing no hope at all laying ahead for them. Some had lived lives so terrible that they didn’t think that God even knew they existed.

Sound familiar? Their stories are not too different than many of ours today. And, just as Jesus said to them, He says to us today – “Take Courage!”

My friend, 2010 can be your best year ever! This Sunday, I am beginning a brand new preaching series based on the many times Jesus told his followers to “take courage.”

January 3 – Take Courage! God Is In Control! – Matthew 14:22-33

January 10 – Take Courage! Your Future Is Secure! – John 16:16-33

January 17 – Take Courage! Healing Can Be Yours! – Matthew 9:20-22

January 31 – Take Courage! Your Sins Are Forgiven! – Mark 9:1-8

Don’t miss a single week of this life-changing New Year’s series! Take Courage!

defuse Defuse Discouragement

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you ago.” – Joshua 1:9

All of us know what it is like to be discouraged. Life seems to be spinning out of control and our inner resources are running on empty. What we often fail to realize is that discouragement signals the need for immediate action. Discouragement is not a time to fall back in defeat; it is the time to muster our courage and take decisive action–to run swiftly to the Word of God. We must take steps to defuse our discouragement before it turns into depression and despair. We cannot wait until we feel like reading Scripture and praying. Our feelings are part of the funk we are in. We must have faith in God, not give into feelings that are part of our predicament. When we find our spiritual strength failing we need an immediate transfusion of hope and power—whether we feel like getting that infusion it or not. We need to force-feed ourselves with the Word of God. We need to pick up our Bible, open it to passages that contain promises of strength and provision and read the words out loud. Rather than wait for others to help us, we need to be our own encouragers by listening to ourselves recite the words that will renew our strength. We need to allow God to minister to our need, not give in to discouragement and turn our back on our primary source of relief. When we find that our courage is waning we need to run to the Word and keep our nose in the Book for as long as it takes to draw the strength we need to revive our fainting spirit. Do not be discouraged is an order, not an option, for those who march in God’s army.

Yes, force-feeding is a concept that seems to run contrary to the principles of loving self care! But what we often fail to realize is that over the years we have learned to compulsively eat, force-feeding our bodies as an antidote to discouragement. We turned to food when what we really needed was a transfusion from the Word of God. Instead of allowing Him to nourish us we have tried to sustain our weary bodies by cramming more food down our throat. That’s why Bible Study, Scripture reading and prayer are such an essential part of the spiritual discipline of self care. By force-feeding ourselves with the Word of God, and crying out to the source of our strength in prayer, we will not become weary and lose heart. We will stand firm in His might and power because we are keeping our nose in the Book and hiding His Word in our heart. Today I pray we will not give in to discouragement. God will not fail us. We can be strong and courageous because we know the Lord our God is with us wherever we go. We have His Word and His great and precious promises to sustain us. Those who trust in Him are never disappointed.

To keep a lamp burning you have to keep putting oil into it. – Mother Teresa

as seen in “Winning Words.” Winning Words for First Place Losers is a daily e-mail devotional written and published by Elizabeth Crews, First Place Bible study author, for the encouragement of the losers who are winners in First Place. If you would like to subscribe to this free daily devotional, please write Elizabeth at firstplacelosers@cox.net and place the word “subscribe” in the subject line.

ten My 10 Resolutions for 2010

This coming year, I have decided that with God’s help, I shall...

1. Give up complaining... focus on gratitude.

2. Give up harsh judgments... think kind thoughts.

3. Give up worry... trust divine providence.

4. Give up discouragement... be full of hope.

5. Give up bitterness... turn to forgiveness.

6. Give up hatred... return good for evil.

7. Give up anger... practice patience.

8. Give up pettiness... put on maturity.

9. Give up gloom... enjoy the beauty that is around me.

10. Give up gossiping... control my tongue.

failed Failed Resolutions

by Alan Smith

At the beginning of a New Year, a high school principal decided to post his teachers‘ New Year’s resolutions on the bulletin board. As the teachers gathered around the bulletin board, a great commotion started. One of the teachers was complaining. “Why weren’t my resolutions posted?” She was throwing such a temper tantrum that the principal hurried to his office to see if he had overlooked her resolutions. Sure enough, he had mislaid them on his desk.

As he read her resolutions he was astounded. This teacher’s first resolution was not to let little things upset her in the New Year.

It has been said that “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Perhaps we should add one more thing to that list of certainties – the breaking of New Year’s resolutions! Looking back on 2008, you may be one of the fortunate ones who accomplished exactly what you hoped to accomplish during the year. But, if you’re like most of us, you didn’t read all the way through the Bible like you intended to, you quit smoking but only for a while then picked up the habit again, or you lost a few pounds only to put them back on again when your diet failed. After experiencing this failure year after year, a person tends to say to himself, “What’s the use? Why even bother to try to make these changes?”

As an old Chinese proverb puts it, though, “Failure is not falling down. Failure is not getting back up.” Or as the Japanese put it, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” If there are areas of your life that you’ve tried to improve and failed, let this be the month that you try again. And if you fail this month, get up and try again next month. Learn from your mistakes and become stronger. God does not turn his back on the Christian who fails (if you question that, you need only look at the story of Peter’s denial of Christ). However, He cannot help the Christian who refuses to try any longer.

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hearts, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded... Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:7-8,10)

If you have made a resolution to develop a habit that will bring you closer to God or a resolution to get rid of a habit that is pulling you away from God, may God bless you with the strength to accomplish your goal. And, if you should stumble on your journey, may He pick you up and dust you off so that you can continue on the long journey of becoming like Christ.

This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his site at http://www.TFTD-online.com

When It Seems Hopeless...

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, so it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.

At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw.

With every shovel full of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone.

We can get out of the deepest wells by not stopping, never giving up! Shake the dirt off and take a step up!

why Why?

I don’t know why my brain works like this, but here are just some random things that make me wonder “why”...

• Can you cry under water?

• How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

• Why do you have to “put your two cents in”... but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts”? Where’s that extra penny going?

• Once you’re in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

• Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

• What disease did cured ham actually have?

• How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

• Why is it that people say they “slept like a baby” when babies wake up like every two hours?

• Why are you IN a movie, but you’re ON TV?

• Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

• Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway.

• Why is it called “a pair of pants” when there is only one piece of clothing?

• Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

• If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

• Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

• If the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can’t he fix a hole in a boat?

• Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!

• If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME stuff, why didn’t he just buy dinner?

• If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

• If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

• Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

• Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

• Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

• Why did Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

last The Last Impression

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor’s job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.

The human resources manager tells him, “You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day.”

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.

To this the manager replies, “You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day.”

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers‘ market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit.

Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.

Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company’s payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars. Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn’t have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, “What, you don’t have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you’d had all of that five years ago!”

“Ha” snorts the man. “If I’d had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour.”

Which brings us to the moral of the story: Since you got this story by e-mail, you’re probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire. Sadly, I received it also.

It’s not only the beginning of a new year – it’s the beginning of a new decade! It hardly seems possible, but we are now moving into the second decade of this new century. It’s at times like this that we are reminded just how quickly time moves. I’m really not one for setting New Year’s resolutions. I believe it is far more important that we make positive, daily, Christ-like choices. One of those choices every Christ-follower needs to make is to prioritize their walk in the Lord. That means faithful attendance at church. It means entering into sincere and fervent worship. It means devoted study of God’s Word. It means heartfelt time seeking God in prayer.

For 2010, don’t make resolutions. Make good choices.