I must confess that I have stopped making New Year’s Resolutions because I have never been able to keep them. I have made them and tried to keep them on my own willpower. As I’ve gotten older, I have found that my will-power is nothing compared to God’s willpower. Realizing this, I’m making three resolutions that I have prayed about and believe God wants me to make and ask His help in keeping. I know in order for success, I need to pray and read His word daily. I’m doing this when life is starting to become hectic again. I believe that no matter how crazy life gets this year—and believe me, as I look at what is in store ahead, it’s going to be a whirlwind, that God and His will for me need to take priority over all things. To try to plan for those days when I need to be reminded that God is helping me and I am in His tender care, I have compiled a list of verses to encourage and help me meet the goals of my life for the year 2020 that God has led me to pursue. The verses center around God’s strength, prayer and God’s love because these are what I feel I will need to meet the challenges. I have only included five verses fin each category, but there are many more.
I pray for a happy and God-filled 2020 for all of you!
STRENGTH
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 40:29
It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.
II Samuel 22:33
Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. I Chronicles 16:11
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1
PRAYER
So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer. Ezra 8:23
Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth. Psalm 54:2
You who answer prayer, to you all people will come. Psalm 65:2
[The Lord] will respond to the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their plea. Psalm 102:17
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. Matthew 21:22
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12
LOVE
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep his commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! Psalm 66:20
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38 & 39
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. I John 3:1
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:16-21
Photo credit: 2017, Greatness, Inc.
