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Are you looking forward to what God has in store for you in 2011? What steps will you take to deepen your relationship with God and to learn to listen to His voice?
Here is some food for thought from ‘Twelve Steps to a Good Year’ by Derek Prince. These short talks, full of challenging insights are based on the epistle to the Hebrews, where there are twelve ‘Let us…’ sentences, constituting twelve resolutions for the New Year we can make as a body of believers.
 Twelve Steps to a Good Year
1. Let us fear. Hebrews 4:1
2. Let us be diligent. Hebrews 4:11
3. Let us hold fast our confession. Hebrews 4:14
4. Let us draw near to the throne of grace. Hebrews 4:16
5. Let us press on to maturity. Hebrews 6:1
6. Let us draw near to the most holy place. Hebrews 10:19,22
7. Let us hold fast, without wavering, our confession. Hebrews 10:24
8. Let us consider one another. Hebrews 10:24
 9. Let us run with endurance the race set before us. Hebrews 12:1
10. Let us show gratitude. Hebrews 12:28
11. Let us go out to Him, outside the camp. Hebrews 13:13
12. Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. Hebrews 13:15
1. Let us fear lest we fail to rest in Christ. Hebrews 4:1
The situation of many Christians today corresponds to that of the Hebrew believers in the NT times. We have long enjoyed special advantages like: freedom from idolatry and false cults, knowledge of the Old Testament scripture, familiarity with the temple and worship. But all too often they haven’t produced the fruit that God requires. Today we are the ones who need to be warned about such things as drifting, unbelief, laziness and negligence.
The writer to the Hebrews reminds us of the basic failure of the Israelites during the time of their wandering in the wilderness in Hebrews 3:7-15. The hearts of the Israelites were always going astray. They were content to get things second hand, through religious knowledge, laws and ceremony, and yet missed that one thing that could have saved them from disaster and carried them through to God’s rest. They failed to hear God’s voice.
The Israelites are an example for us today. We need to be careful that we don’t make the same mistake as they made in the wilderness, focusing on externals, and so miss hearing God’s voice. Being preoccupied with religion, ceremonies and laws gets in the way of having an intimate, personal relationship with the Lord, where He can speak to you directly. Whether through reading the Bible, praying or some other way, hearing God’s voice is the key essential to successful living.
2. Let us be diligent. Hebrews 4:11
Many Israelites fell during the journey through the wilderness because of their unbelief and disobedience. They had the externals but they did not have the great, essential inner reality of all true religion: hearing the voice of the Lord.
That was the tragic mistake of Israel. If we really take to heart the dangers of the spiritual condition of the Israelites and we do in that sense, fear, the thing we will naturally do is become diligent. Not only that but diligent until the end.
The Christian life is one of faith and of adding: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Living the Christian life requires diligence - making every effort.
There are things we can do that will guarantee that we never fall and that we have a rich welcome in to the Kingdom of our Lord. The warning we get is against the opposite of diligence, laziness. Laziness is an often overlooked concern in Christian circles, and is severely condemned in the Scripture, so let’s take this warning seriously. The blessing of the Lord, added to by the hand of the diligent, makes the path clear to attaining spiritual wealth.
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