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Starting the New Year Focusing on Love
13 Plays1 year ago
It is almost 2025! As we start this new year, we get the gift to change our heart and lives. We can have a fresh start. We can let go of any bitterness or unforgiveness we are carrying. We can connect to the deep hope we have in God's love for us. And with this hope and faith, we can then have action. This year we can have the confidence to follow where God is leading us.
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Transcript
Introduction and Message of Hope
00:00:01
Filling You Up With Hope
Hi, it's Abby from Filling You Up with Hope. I'm so thankful that you're here, where we go through God's Word, the Bible, and we find so much hope. And there's so much hope in that. It is a new
New Year and Fresh Starts
00:00:15
Filling You Up With Hope
year almost, and Merry Christmas, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas. um So much hope, it's ah it's a fresh start. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Like
Birth and Personal Reflections
00:00:27
Filling You Up With Hope
to me, that just,
00:00:29
Filling You Up With Hope
gives me so much joy and hope that we get fresh starts. And so no matter what you're going through, taking that in today, that this can be a fresh start.
00:00:43
Filling You Up With Hope
um And a birth is a fresh start, right? We just,
The Shepherds' Encounter and Impact
00:00:48
Filling You Up With Hope
Christmas just happened and we, obviously we celebrated the birth of Jesus. And I know for me,
00:00:58
Filling You Up With Hope
As a mom, when my kids were born, um all of them, it was it was such a big change in my life. And I said that's i think that's the way it is for a a lot of moms. like It changes your perspective on things. um For me, with every birth, I just grew closer and closer to God, and my faith grew.
00:01:27
Filling You Up With Hope
um And so, but Jesus's birth, and it didn't just change Mary. It changed everything in this world. And so we're going to start by talking about the shepherds. um
Shifting Priorities Inspired by the Shepherds
00:01:46
Filling You Up With Hope
So this is Luke two verses eight through 20, but I'm only going to read a couple of the verses. um Nearby shepherds were living in the fields guarding their sheep at night.
00:01:58
Filling You Up With Hope
The Lord's glory shone around them and they were terrified. The angel said, don't be afraid. Look, I bring good news to you. Wonderful, joyous news for all people. Your savior is born today. And David's city, he is Christ the Lord. And then skipping down, let's go at the shepherds say this. Let's go to Bethlehem and see what happened. So.
00:02:25
Filling You Up With Hope
ah change, right? Jesus's birth, it changed the sky. An amazing star was in the sky, right? And so there, here's the shepherds guarding their sheep, which was their identity, right? This was their job. It was so important for them to look after the sheep and to keep them safe. But the angel came and what mattered was going to see Jesus. It was more important in their job. It was more important than anything. And that's the way Jesus should be to us. More important than anything. And so, but what a change, right? That those shepherds went through because being a shepherd, you're very loyal to your job, right? Because you you need to keep these sheep safe.
00:03:22
Filling You Up With Hope
So the fact that they picked up and left, that's very much out of character. That's a big change. And that's what God does. It changes it changes us.
00:03:37
Filling You Up With Hope
so
Personal Growth and Transformation for the New Year
00:03:38
Filling You Up With Hope
But now skipping down to Luke 2.20, the shepherds returned home glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told.
00:03:54
Filling You Up With Hope
So they were just filled with, um, filled with joy. And we're just praising God for what they had seen, but we can all have that, have, have that joy because Jesus came and, and every day we can just take that in because it was a miracle, Jesus's birth. And it, it was a new fresh start. And we, we all, we all can have that like today, right? We can say 2025. Um, it's an opportunity to make changes in our lives and like a restart and refresh, which
00:04:51
Filling You Up With Hope
feels so good, isn't it? Like thinking about it that way. So I remember when one of my sons was in kindergarten, like anytime the class had like a rough time, she would say, okay, let's restart. Let's restart the day. Let's just restart. Like that was one of her things. And and it really helped the class and it just kind of stuck with me.
00:05:21
Filling You Up With Hope
Um, because sometimes we all have hard days, right? And we just want to restart and we can gather ourselves and we can have, um, we can't have this restart and things can change.
Aligning with Jesus's Teachings
00:05:40
Filling You Up With Hope
There's so much hope in that. I think so many times we feel stuck. We've talked about this a lot on the podcast, um, with,
00:05:51
Filling You Up With Hope
Parenting with our jobs, we can just feel stuck and like things are always going to be this way. And, um, you know, I'm never going to get a new job. I'm never going to get a promotion, uh, you know, whatever it is, but that is not living the way God wants us to because God tells us, um, this is Mark one 14.
00:06:17
Filling You Up With Hope
After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing the good news saying, now is the time. Here comes God's kingdom. Change your heart and lives and trust the good news. Change your heart and lives.
00:06:36
Filling You Up With Hope
There's always an opportunity to change. Things never have to feel stagnant and we should be changing our heart and lives to be more like Jesus every day. We should. And what a perfect time to do this and to think about this and to make it a commitment to do it because it's almost 2025. Right? But today, this moment, we don't have to wait. we In this moment, we can we can take in that we have the ability to change, which is
00:07:16
Filling You Up With Hope
radical right for a lot of us because um we just think that things are always going to be this way. But
Releasing Bitterness and Unforgiveness
00:07:29
Filling You Up With Hope
that's that's not that's not what happened with the shepherds. After they encountered God, they changed. When we encounter God, we need to change. And it's a daily thing to connect to God.
00:07:45
Filling You Up With Hope
and to have things that we need to work on in our hearts and lives to make us um more of the people that God wants us to be, to be more connected to Jesus who dwells inside of us instead of our flesh. um It's an everyday thing and we really need to be committed to what Jesus was announcing, change your heart and life.
00:08:11
Filling You Up With Hope
um And It's not something that is just going to happen, right? He's not saying, I'll change your heart in life. He, he, we have to make a commitment to do this. And I might seem impossible, but we have God so we can do this. So the first thing, so we're going to go through three things.
00:08:41
Filling You Up With Hope
that are going to help us change and help us focus on love in 2025. And the first thing is that we need to let go of some things. something things um we need to get let go of any unforgiveness that we're carrying. And this is a process that we need to do continually. But Ephesians 4.31,
00:09:07
Filling You Up With Hope
I love this so much. Put aside all bitterness, losing your temper, anger, shouting and slander along with every kind of evil. Be kind and compassionate and forgiving to each other in the same way God forgave you in Christ.
00:09:27
Filling You Up With Hope
So we need to be putting, we need to kind of examine are ourselves Um, where, where are we feeling bitterness? You know, praying about it and asking God to show us where are we feeling bitterness? Where are we feeling unforgiveness? Um, and, and dealing with that giving the surrendering it to God and starting this new year with, um, with
00:10:01
Filling You Up With Hope
was like this clean slate. It's really hard to do that if we have a bunch of bitterness and unforgiveness. And how can we have God's forgiveness if we aren't giving that to other
Hope, Love, and Mental Well-being
00:10:14
Filling You Up With Hope
people? And so ah it's it's a hard thing, but we but we can do it with God. um so So that's the first thing, letting go. and letting go of bitterness, right? Because we don't want to live that way. We can't be doing the things that God wants us to do if we are living in bitterness, if we are losing our temper, anger, shouting, slander, all these kinds of evil. No, what we need to focus on is being kind and compassionate and and forgiving. um That's what how God is telling us to live. That's part of the
00:11:00
Filling You Up With Hope
the heart change that we need to have is away from bitterness and towards kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
00:11:13
Filling You Up With Hope
so But to do that, we also need the second thing that that we're going to talk about, which is taking in hope.
00:11:27
Filling You Up With Hope
This is 1 Corinthians 13, four through eight, so good. Love is patient, love is kind. It isn't jealous, it doesn't brag. It isn't arrogant, it isn't rude. It doesn't seek its own advantage. is It isn't irritable. It doesn't keep a record of complaints. It isn't happy with um injustice, but it's happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things.
00:11:55
Filling You Up With Hope
hopes for all things, endures all things, love never fails. God never fails. He never, never fails. And so that gives us such hope in our hearts. Like in 2025, let's let go of bitterness and let's connect to connect to hope.
00:12:25
Filling You Up With Hope
connect to hope that that we all have when we have Jesus and when we have him, we have eternal life with him. We we we have this amazing, amazing God and and we need to be so connected to that and to his love. um And we need to be giving that to others. And so reading these verses, I mean the Bible is filled with so much good things um to take in that just give us hope because we need that hope really deep down in our hearts to make this change. um Like this, the hope that we have eternity with Jesus.
00:13:27
Filling You Up With Hope
and that we um And that we have this loving God that never fails. Like, oh, how blessed are we that we have him. And um we need these things so deep in our heart um to make the changes, to make the changes that um that we're not going to be angry that we're going to um change because we all need to and change is a scary thing for a lot of us. Most people, and we get comfortable, but um God told us to change our heart and lives. He told us that our our lives um need to be
00:14:25
Filling You Up With Hope
focused on him, he needs to be the center of everything. um And it is that it's scary. It really is. But how many times does it say in the Bible? And like we like I've talked about in some translations, it's 365 times that it says, don't be afraid. the The angel told the shepherds that, don't be afraid.
00:14:56
Filling You Up With Hope
um God is telling us, don't be afraid, just trust me and put but our hope in Him instead of um the things of this world.
00:15:16
Filling You Up With Hope
It's such a gift that that we can do that because He never fails. So if our hope is in Him, then we we can make these changes. So we're gonna let go in 2025. We're gonna really connect to hope. um And connecting to hope is gonna really, really, really help with our mental health. um feeling Feeling hopeless. And it's something that ah happens a lot when we're feeling depressed. We feel hopeless.
00:15:56
Filling You Up With Hope
um So when we really connect to the one hope that doesn't change, then it's it's gonna help our mental health and we're gonna be able to do the things that God is calling us to do.
Faith in Action and Spiritual Growth
00:16:15
Filling You Up With Hope
So the last thing is we need action. It's great to have this hope and to let go and to feel good and just rooted in God, but um but we need to act on it and and do take that leap of faith, do the things that God is calling us to do. So this is John the Baptist talking in Luke 3.8, produce fruit to show you have changed your heart and lives.
00:16:52
Filling You Up With Hope
Yeah. and James 2 17 and the same way face is dead when it doesn't result in faithful activity.
00:17:04
Filling You Up With Hope
So 2025 can will be a year where we have let go. We have this hope and now we can do the things that God is calling us to do. We aren't going to be burdened down by resentment and unforgiveness.
00:17:30
Filling You Up With Hope
um And, you know, we we can pray to God um and ask for guidance. Like, what does, what does he want us to do? um And then having the confidence to follow him and the confidence to change. So maybe this is,
00:17:53
Filling You Up With Hope
a time um before the new year of self-examination of, um like we talked about at the beginning, really praying about it and about what things God wants us to let go of and and praying for this deep hope and for guidance of what good things um, he wants you to do. And,
Introspection and Embracing God's Guidance
00:18:25
Filling You Up With Hope
um, so it's such a gift that we can, um, let go of bitterness, let go of negative things that we all hold on to. I don't, i I don't think that, um, any of us are perfect, only goddess, right?
00:18:51
Filling You Up With Hope
And so we can all break we can all take this time and reflect and and think about, in 2025, I'm not gonna take um unforgiveness with me. And it's easy to say it today, but every day we need to take that make that commitment to let go of it because we get triggered and those feelings come come up again. And that's natural.
00:19:28
Filling You Up With Hope
um But we have the gift to change. and And what a gift that that is. So I hope that um we're not feeling stuck about anything. Whatever you feel stuck about is really something that that we need to pray deeply about. um Because there's there is nothing impossible for God, right, if it's if it's in his will. And so that gives us so much hope. And um so and it's just it's just a great way to start the new year, letting go of the bitterness
00:20:19
Filling You Up With Hope
and and holding on to the love and the kindness and compassion because just like the shepherds and how they were praising God and worshiping him, they just couldn't believe what they'd seen.
Conclusion and Invitation for Engagement
00:20:41
Filling You Up With Hope
Let's all connect to that amazement of Jesus and that he came to this earth and somehow, like I said at the beginning, somehow thousands of years later, we know him and we can pray to him and turn to him and we can have so much hope and joy in our lives. And then it spreads to our children and to our friends and the people around us. And then we're being fruitful, like what Jesus tells us
00:21:18
Filling You Up With Hope
to be. yeah But it's it's not just if we're just sitting there, it's not going to happen, right? We have to take the action. And I pray that we all do for 2025, and that it's just a year of positive changes in your life, and that God gives you the wisdom.
00:21:43
Filling You Up With Hope
um to to tell you what you need to let go of and make that commitment um to do that. And that he just puts so much hope in your heart and and that we're all fruitful for him. So I will be back on January 6th. We're gonna be in Joshua.
00:22:13
Filling You Up With Hope
that the Israelites are in the Promised Land. And um finally, we were in Deuteronomy for so long. So I'm so excited to pick that up again with you. And if you want to follow along, just read the first couple of pages of Joshua. And we'll talk about a little bit of that. And just like we always do, the deep hope and joy and love that there is in Jesus. And I really pray that you feel that and you feel like you are his child and um that 2025 is going to be a blessed year. So thank you so much for listening and happy new year. Bye.