Another cycle – a fresh start – for some people who have loads of dreams, hopes and aspirations.
Others are confused. They are not sure whether to reduce their expectations, judging from what they experienced last year.
2020 was a little tumultuous, thus, in this new year, we ask for good health for every member of our families, loved ones and even those we do not know.
We pray for wisdom and direction to take each day at a time.
We pray for guidance to know what to do in every situation.
We pray for knowledge to ascertain which voice is yours.
In this new year, please respond to at least one of the most pertinent desires of everyone.
Help us to be good people
Teach us to love one another and to keep our faith in you instead of our abilities.
As you have taken us through a challenging year, we believe this year will be much better.
Before you move on to another blog theme as the month draws to a close, can you please address my question? I want to know how I can land a good job and make more money this year. I am a university graduate who completed with a very good class in 2016. I have been applying for several jobs but do not receive the response I want. As part of my New Year resolution for 2019, I want to land a good job, make money legitimately and be recognised as one of the richest people in my family. How do I do this? I look forward to reading your response.
— A young follower of your blog
CBG’s Response
Hello,
Thanks for sending this question but if you only dream of being rich in order to be identified by your family members as such, then you need to revise your thinking. Money should be treated as a means to an end not an end in itself. In other words, there has to be something that the money needs to fuel. You need to have a dream or vision and note that money comes to people who have made themselves valuable to the world. You’ll notice a trend if you study the richest people. Most of them attained that status while giving value to the world. They solved some of the most complex problems and made money as a result. You can take a cue and make yourself valuable by solving a problem i.e. if you dream of being an entrepreneur. Let’s say your gift and passion is to write, find out what value that can bring to society. When that is recognised, then you can go ahead to monetize it. Your gift will initially be given out for free for people to taste of it. When they taste and recognise its value then they’ll be willing to pay for it. Just don’t stop what you are doing as long as you know you are on the right path. Additionally, learn about people in your field and pick lessons on how they’ve been able to monetize their gifts.
You should also answer the question of what grace has made available and receive it by faith. Now to your question on how you can land a good job. In this situation, you have a role to play. Don’t just sit and fold your arms and say,
“it depends on God or if God gives it to me that is ok and if He doesn’t, that is fine.”
This is a wrong approach. Anybody who wants to find a job and never takes any action will remain jobless. It is God’s idea for us to do well (Jeremiah 29:11; Psalm 25:13) and He blesses us through the works of our hands (Psalm 90:17). That is the assurance and the provision made available by grace but if you do not write applications and send them to the relevant job places and do follow-up visits, then you’ve not got faith. You need to make yourself visible. Let somebody out there know that this young man/woman has this gift or provides this service that can bring value to our company and organisation
Keep working at it and follow-up on your applications. If you read the story about the judge and widow in the Bible (Luke 18:1-8) the widow had to persist for the judge to give in. That is the attitude you should adopt in your job search and your quest to become rich this year. We’ll be praying with you.
Do you have any piece of advice to this reader on how a Christian can make money legitimately? If you do, please share it in the comment box.
It’s another new year and the debate on whether to make plans or resolutions has started (as usual 🤷). I have been on both sides before. There have been years where I had nothing on paper because I believed God had the ultimate plan for my life. I was ‘comfortably living out’ Jeremiah 29:11 😊
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Of course, God was the master planner and so what was my role? Nothing much. Just acting out His plan and in those years, I really had nothing to show on 31st December. There were other years that I wrote my new resolutions on sheets of papers that I never bothered to look for. Those years were equally ordinary but last year, I did something very different that worked and in 2019, I am building on it and that is what I am going to share with you.
At the beginning of 2018, I wrote down what would define a successful year for me on a whiteboard which was strategically placed close to my bed. That board also served as a planner for this blog and the delight that came with checking out those milestones was amazing. I always had a broad smile whenever I crossed out my ‘little’ successes.
I had my overall goals for the year written at the top and at the bottom were monthly plans as well as objectives for this blog. For instance, after I read a book and conducted a review for the blog, I crossed that out. When I planned to interview people for the blog and I successfully executed it, I crossed that out. Those moments felt like big achievements for me and I never failed to thank God and also pat myself at the back. They weren’t easy to do and they came with a lot of sacrifices but the joy of crossing and updating them monthly made it fun.
This year, my plans are even more elaborate. They have been grouped under several headings including personal, career, Christian life, blogger among others because I am living out Habakkuk 2:2,
Then the LORD told me: “I will give you my message in the form of a vision. Write it clearly enough to be read at a glance.
I am going to lean on God’s grace and also put in my effort because I know His plans will reign supreme, therefore, I will keep communicating with Him to ensure we are on the same page. Note, Proverbs 19:21 says:
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
My little advice: Don’t leave this year to chance. If huge organisations are setting S-M-A-R-T goals and targets and achieving them, how much more your personal life? God would love to see you succeed. When Elisha in 2 Kings 4 went to the widow’s house, he asked her what she had in her house and she responded:
“Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
The jar of oil served as a channel for the widow’s blessings. Talk to God regularly and let Him know what you have in your ‘house’ and heart in 2019. Create that plan. Place it somewhere visible and work on achieving them and that could be the conduit for your blessing. I recently read a post on Facebook about a man who created a 10-year educational plan when he only had a Diploma. He did not have the funds readily available but worked on the plan nonetheless and currently has a PhD. Isn’t that amazing?
Remember to engage with God constantly to ensure you are on the right path and 2019 will not be an ordinary year like previous ones.
P.S: Happy and Blessed New Year from us to you. Those following our other social media platforms have seen this appreciation note and here is yours:
Thank you 😘
It promises to be an exciting year for the blog and if I were you, I will keep telling others about it.
Happy New Year. May this year bring all that you’ve been praying for in Jesus’name! 😘😘😘
Development experts spend quite a substantial amount of their resources on monitoring and evaluation when executing a project. In fact, they hire officers in charge of this unique area even before the project starts. Why not at the end? This is because they do not underestimate the role of monitoring and evaluation. Measuring their successes and failures as they go through a project ensures they are charting the right course and perhaps, saves them more resources. If we determined to make good use of this new year, we can as well take a cue from the development experts – monitor and evaluate our progress with our various goals monthly.
Pause. Let’s go back to January 1. It’s been 30 amazing days already. How have you fared? Have you started working on your resolutions yet? Are you spending more time in prayer and reading the word? Are you working on acquiring that new skill, reading those books already or building yourself up in a specific capacity? Are you practicing that good saving habit? How about that new business? Have you started working on the proposal? If you haven’t started, it’s not too late to put down some goals, of course, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Don’t allow the year to pass by without you placing some demand on God, the Father.
One practice the Bible encourages is the writing down of our visions as stated in Habakkuk 2:2,
Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets …
There are certain ideas and dreams that God has laid in our hearts. You may choose to call them resolutions, goals, dreams, ambitions or aspirations, but, take a paper or your phone, state them and include how the Holy Spirit has directed you to work towards them. You can only know the mind of the spirit when you spend time praying quality prayers.
This month, we learnt that the Holy Spirit makes everything possible for believers, hence, it is important to involve God in our plans. We also learned that whatever you ingest is what we bring out as Christians, therefore, we should be wary of what we allow into our senses. Let’s learn to build ourselves up by taking in the right stuff – which will help us achieve our bigger goals. It could be reading more books or watching videos that can build our intellect.
Take some time and cast your mind back to the beginning of the year and take an assessment. Do you like how you’ve spent the month? If you do, keep it up! If not, let’s involve God and work towards the various ministries that God has before us.
It’s been a great start but we trust that God has more in store for us. Let’s hold Him by His word!
Dr Emmanuel Sogah || Medical Doctor|| Budding Minister
When the clock strikes midnight on the 1st of January, there seems to be some glimmer of hope that the New Year will automatically be better than the previous one. It is not bad but to have a successful year requires deliberate steps and like a soldier preparing for war, it is important to have a plan and strategy.
People start the year with different ambitions and resolutions but half-way, they lose hope even though they believe the will of God for them is to have an amazing and successful year.
To ensure 2018 becomes one of the best years yet, believers are required to follow these principles as listed by Dr. Emmanauel Sogah:
Abide in the Word
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you – John 15:7
To have a great year, you need to be a person of the word. It is in the word that you’ll find strategies and ideas to accomplish whichever goal you list. When there is a union between the Christian and the word of God, whatsoever you ask will be granted.
In God’s mind, there is no prayer of a Christian that should be rejected. Jesus in his earth walk demonstrated that when he, for example, spoke words to the fig tree and it was done (Mark 11:12-25). As a Christian, this should be our everyday experience – when we speak we ought to receive answers and that can only be done when there is a perfect union between the Christian and the word of God.
Allow the Holy Spirit to Influence you
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. – Luke 1:35
After setting our goals for the year, we wonder how we are going to achieve them. Just as Mary conceived her baby after she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, so shall we achieve our goals this year by the influence of the Holy Spirit. This point is also emphasised in Zechariah 4:6
So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
If you are going to achieve anything, then it is going to be by the Holy Spirit. It is also important to fellowship with the Holy Spirit by praying with other tongues. He (the Holy Spirit) will help you as emphasised in Romans 8:26.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
The Spirit gives us insight into the future for us to understand the details of projects we wish to undertake. The Holy Spirit also helps us in our shortcomings when it comes to goals we have set for the year. Joshua received unorthodox directions from God to march around the walls of Jericho, seven times (Joshua 6) in order to bring the walls down. If we are going to succeed this year, we’ll need to go by the strategies of the Holy Spirit which is sometimes uncommon and not according to the systems of the world.
Pursue Excellence
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge…. – 2 Peter 1:5-8
Ensure excellence is seen whatever you do as a Christian this year. Be steadfast and immovable in the decisions you take. Pay attention to expressing your inward virtues.
If these things (aforementioned) are in you in an increasing measure, fruitfulness will be inevitable.
You can also click on the link below to listen to the audio.
Back in Senior High School, a very good friend and I used to joke that our new year resolutions must be more terrible than the previous year. We resolved to be more ‘sly’ with our seniors, ‘cut’ school functions and simply break more rules because to us, in the previous year, we had been good but new year resolutions meant doing things differently.
Even though we were not confident enough to put into practice those resolutions, the perception we had added some excitement to the way we approached our seniors. That was also a wrong mindset and a not-so-good way to start the new year.
New Year resolutions are often defined as a tradition where individuals resolve to achieve certain goals (positive) and quit undesired behaviour.
Some of us, while we grow have stopped believing in new year resolutions because of personal reasons. We used to make lists of things we wish to achieve in a particular year but halfway, we realised we could not achieve them, hence, the decision to do without them.
We’d love to lose weight, continue our education, find better jobs, start our own businesses, find life partners, move out of our parents’ homes among others. These are some examples of new year resolutions.
The new year does not automatically change who we are. We do not become superhumans because the clock struck 12 midnight on 1-1-2018 but as Christians, we believe God’s mercies are new every morning and He’s a faithful God (Lamentations 3:22) who has the interest of His Children at heart. That is the reason He’d like to see us succeed each day and that is the reason we believe in positive new year resolutions.
From a personal experience with this blog, anytime I listed ideas of topics, I realised I was able to follow through proving right Habakkuk 2:2:
“Write down your visions on scrolls…”
Do not just fold your arms and watch the year pass by. Prayerfully seek the face of God on what He’d like to achieve with you in 2018 and list whatever He reveals to you. Go back and ask Him how He’d like you to achieve them. Hold God’s hand every day through quality prayer time and word study and see if you will not achieve what you had on that new year resolutions’ list.
We’ll be here at the end of the year to take your testimonies.
The Christian Blog 