Start Your New Life Today
Contents
INTRODUCTION: The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make
CHAPTER 1: Start Your New Life Today
CHAPTER 4: Simply Receive God’s Love for You
CHAPTER 5: Separate Your Who from Your Do
CHAPTER 6: Rely on Truth Rather than Feelings
PART TWO: You Are Spirit, Soul, And Body
INTRODUCTION: The Way to a Happy Life
SECTION I: Your Spirit—The Real You
CHAPTER 7: Do You Want Misery, Mediocrity, or Victory?
CHAPTER 9: The Right Truth at the Right Time
CHAPTER 10: Learn to Hear from God
CHAPTER 11: The Life of God Is Inside Us
CHAPTER 12: The Most Direct Way
CHAPTER 14: Do You Have Selective Hearing?
CHAPTER 15: Let the Holy Spirit Defend You
CHAPTER 16: Listen for God’s Still, Small Voice
SECTION II: Your Soul—Mind, Will, and Emotions
CHAPTER 19: A New Way of Thinking
CHAPTER 20: Be Careful What You Think
CHAPTER 21: Meditation Produces Success
CHAPTER 22: “I Want a Mind Change”
CHAPTER 23: Transforming Your Mind and Your Life
CHAPTER 25: Think About What You Are Thinking About
CHAPTER 26: Peace in the Night
CHAPTER 27: Control Your Wandering Thoughts
CHAPTER 28: The Time-Waster of Wondering
CHAPTER 29: Double-Minded and Confused
CHAPTER 32: When Someone Fails
CHAPTER 33: Suspicious of Suspicion
CHAPTER 34: Passive or Passionate?
CHAPTER 35: The Mind of Christ
CHAPTER 36: Meditate on These Things
CHAPTER 37: The Blessings of Meditation
CHAPTER 38: Truth in the Inner Being
CHAPTER 39: Making Right Choices
CHAPTER 42: Will You Be Critical or Helpful?
CHAPTER 44: Loving One Another
CHAPTER 45: Guarding Our Hearts
CHAPTER 46: Overcoming Passivity
CHAPTER 47: Right Action Follows Right Thinking
CHAPTER 48: Be Thankful—Always
CHAPTER 49: Tips for Being Thankful
CHAPTER 50: Jesus Came to Set You Free
CHAPTER 51: Do You Need a Change of Address?
CHAPTER 52: Instant Gratification
CHAPTER 54: Choosing the Right Response
CHAPTER 55: Developing a Compassionate Heart
CHAPTER 57: God Gave Us Emotions to Enjoy Life
CHAPTER 58: Negative Emotions Steal Your Energy
CHAPTER 59: You Can Control Your Emotions
CHAPTER 60: The Test of Emotionally Trying Times
CHAPTER 61: Be Mentally Prepared
CHAPTER 62: Don’t Cater to Your Emotions
CHAPTER 63: Don’t Trust Your Feelings
CHAPTER 64: Emotional Discernment
CHAPTER 65: Managing Your Emotions for a Life of Joy and Peace
CHAPTER 66: One Step at a Time
CHAPTER 67: Keep Pressing Forward
CHAPTER 68: God Wants to Heal Past Hurts Affecting Your Present
CHAPTER 69: Your Answer Is Under Your Nose
CHAPTER 70: Speaking God’s Language
CHAPTER 71: The Effect of Words
CHAPTER 72: Exchanging Fear for Faith
SECTION III: Your Body—Your Home, God’s Home
CHAPTER 74: Your Body Affects Your Spiritual Life
CHAPTER 75: Taking Care of Your Body—Get Some Sleep!
CHAPTER 76: Respecting Your Body
CHAPTER 77: Willpower or God’s Power?
CHAPTER 78: Receive God’s Love
CHAPTER 79: Curb Your Spiritual Hunger
CHAPTER 82: Eat Fat—The Right Kind
CHAPTER 83: Let Water Do Its Job
CHAPTER 85: Steer Clear of Cortisol
CHAPTER 87: Put the Tools to Work
CHAPTER 88: God Restores Us Soul and Body
A Brand-New Start
The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make
D
o you sometimes wish you could start over? Or do you lead a successful life from all outward appearances but often wonder,
Surely there must be more to life than this
? In either case, there is good news for you. God wants to make your life new. He wants to give you a brand-new start if you need one.
Some people have tried religion hoping to find a solution to their frustrating existence. The people who find “religion” to be a burden of lifeless and unreasonable rules they are unable to keep have not found God. If you are one of those people, God has a new life to give you through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus did not die to offer us religion, rather he died to give us an opportunity to have an intimate relationship with God through faith in Him.
If you need to feel loved, if you need your sins forgiven, if you need a friend who will help you with everything you do, if you need a great future, Jesus Christ is your answer. He is waiting to make you into a brand-new creation and give you a new life beyond the best you could possibly imagine.
If you are not satisfied with your life, then you must change something. Like anyone else, if you keep doing the same things you have always done, you will have the life you have always had. You need to make a decision, the most important decision you will ever make.
This decision is more important than your career choice, where you will attend college, whom you will marry, how you will invest your money, or where you will live. This decision concerns eternity. Eternity is time without end, and there is life after death. When we die, we don’t cease to exist; we just begin to exist in another place. It has been said that dying is like going through a revolving door. We simply leave one place and go to another. We—every one of us—need to know where we will spend eternity.
The decision to receive Jesus is a new birth into a relationship with God for eternity beginning here on earth. When you receive Jesus as your Savior, your spirit is made alive to God. The Bible tells us if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature—re-created, born anew. Old things have passed away and all things are brand-new (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus takes our sin, and we are made right with God (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). God imputes righteousness to us or credits it to our account (see Romans 4:11).
The
new birth
happens in an instant. The burden of sin is lifted and we have a brand-new opportunity in our lives. Learning to live the new
life
is a process, but not one of trying to conform our behavior to a set of rules of what we think a Christian should be. Many Christians without an understanding of the new life God makes available to them through Jesus spend their lives trying to earn their own righteousness through doing good works. This doesn’t work because God has already made them acceptable to Him at new birth through Jesus. Righteousness is a free gift from God to be received through faith. Trying to earn a free gift is like trying to get into a chair in which you are already sitting. It is impossible and very frustrating!
The new life is a process of transformation. God doesn’t work just with our behavior; He also changes our hearts. When we seriously commit ourselves to Jesus as Savior and Lord, God begins transforming us from the inside out. He makes us like Jesus inside and wants to work what is in us
out
for other people to see and experience Jesus.
This transformation doesn’t happen overnight and will seem very slow at times. One of the benefits of living in a relationship with Jesus is the freedom to forget the past and move ahead into what God has for us. Jeremiah 29:11 describes the type of future He has in store for us: “For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.”
When you are tempted to condemn yourself over the progress you think you should be making, turn your focus back on Jesus and God’s promises for us recorded in the Bible. Remind yourself, “I’m okay and I’m on my way!” Remember that through faith you have been made right with God, and even though you have not arrived at perfection you are making progress.
Is it hard to make daily the right decisions to allow God to transform you? Yes, like many other things in life, it is hard at times, and we all make mistakes along the way. Is it worth sticking to? Absolutely!
Many people come to Jesus sincerely desiring to start a new life but don’t know what to do after they receive Him. Take this opportunity to begin enjoying the journey God has for you, and start your new life today. You can have a dynamic intimate relationship with God and an amazing life!
Start Your New Life Today
W
hen you receive Jesus as your Savior, a divine exchange takes place. You give Him your sin and guilt, your shame and blame; He gives you right standing with God. You give Him the impoverished areas of your life; He gives you abundance. Jesus wants to give you beauty for ashes in every area of your life.
Sometimes people ask, “What would I have to give up if I became a Christian?”
I tell them, “Well, you would have to give up misery and sin. You would give up depression and discouragement, fear, worry, and anxiety. Do you carry around a burden of guilt and condemnation? You would also give that up.”
Some people seem to think God wants to steal everything we enjoy. God isn’t mean! He is love, and He is good. The Bible says God gives us all things ceaselessly to enjoy (see 1 Timothy 6:17). God loves us so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to take our sins and give us life, life more abundantly (see John 3:16; 10:10). When we receive Jesus, we receive the kingdom of God within us, and that kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (see Romans 14:17). We can choose to continue living with misery, depression, discouragement, fear, worry, anxiety, guilt, and condemnation, but Jesus wants us to receive freedom from those things. Through Jesus, “we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
A new birth into a new life is not supposed to be a door into a downtrodden, miserable existence of struggling to keep religious rules and regulations and feeling guilty when we fail. God gives us a new life and new desires to go along with it. We may lose interest in pursuing some things we used to like very much. A new life as a new creation in relationship with Jesus has brought the fulfillment we used to seek elsewhere. As these changes take place in us, we may not fully understand what we are feeling, but as we trust God He gives us clarity and we begin enjoying our new life in Christ.
The people who wonder what they would have to give up by choosing to receive Jesus are often cycling through repeated behaviors looking for fulfillment they will never find. If you are one of those people, are you tired of living the way you are living? Are you tired of going through life feeling bad about yourself all the time? Are you tired of making decisions you know are wrong and then feeling guilty about those decisions? Do you want to find the fulfillment you are missing? You may be tired of wondering what will happen to you in the future or tired of being afraid of dying. The good news is Jesus has peace for you.