With each new year we often pause to reflect on our accomplishments from the previous year, sometimes we feel a sense of pride for having reached a set of goals we established for ourselves. Possibly our sense of pride comes in knowing that we had the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those we met along the way; however, we often look back with feelings of inadequacy as we ponder days that became weeks and weeks that became months without any real monumental moment that held true eternal value.

The wonderful thing about starting a new year is not that we get to look back with mournful regret, but that within the scope of internally examining our heart within the lens of the new year we have the opportunity to look forward with a clearer understanding of purpose. We have the opportunity to live the new year before us “for His purpose“, so that when this new year becomes a closed chapter we can look back knowing our lives held meaning, the days that became weeks were filled with moments that made an eternal difference. “For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.” Romans 9:17 Just as God had a purpose for Moses’s life, He has a purpose for our lives.  He will raise us up and fill us with His power so that we can declare His name to those we meet along the way, in this way we can live our lives “for His purpose“.

God has placed us in this moment in time to fulfill that for which He has called us to do. Even within the life of Saul who we know as Paul, God brought him to the end of one chapter so that he might fulfill the purpose God had planned for his life all along. “But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;” Acts 26:16. We do not come to be who we are, living where we live as a surprise element within God’s universe. He has a planned purpose for each of us knowing exactly where we will be at any given moment in time, but it’s up to us to trust in Him so that we might live “for His purpose“. It becomes our choice to chose His purpose for our lives. “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. Ephesians 1:11-12

I want to purpose in my heart to live “for His purpose” in 2019, I want to trust Him to fulfill that for which He hath purposed within me.