PASTOR’S CORNER: Fully surrendered (Dropping the weights)

Here we are, community, at the very beginning of 2024. My, how 2023 passed by! It was January, then May, then October, and now the very first week of the new year! Isn’t that something?

The year 2023 is over and had its challenges. All of us had moments of ups and downs and the losses of loved ones, but we can all say that our good days far outweigh our bad ones. But the time has come to leave some things behind, to rid ourselves of some weights, the heavy stuff that threatens to keep us in the hog pen.

The year 2024 brings us to a place where we have to make a choice. Make some decisions this morning. I’m not going a step further in chains, any chains, I’m not going to live to please people anymore, and I’m detaching myself from anybody that is not good for me spiritually, relationships that take away but don’t bring anything and I’m not going to bring anything into the new year that is not spiritually healthy for me. I’m dropping the weights!

How about all of you? Community, sometimes we have to drop the weights! We can’t travel right until we do, can’t work for the Lord in this coming year until we do, can’t love like we should carrying weights and God can’t use us when we’re carrying weights. Drop them and leave them behind! Weights we all know about. They are the things that lay heavy on our hearts. They are distractions that hinder our spiritual walk with God. They are things we hold in our hearts that we don’t talk about; they are scars and wounds that we carry and don’t get healed. They are when we just hold on to stuff and don’t let it go and when we worry about what other people think about us. They are when the opinion of others means more to us than what God thinks of us; it’s when we are not fully committed and sold out to Christ.

Fear and being afraid is a weight. Afraid to step out into the unknown, afraid to step out of the box, afraid to use our gifts, the gifts that God gave to us, holding on to stuff and living in sin is a weight, grieving over the loss of a loved one is a weight, and we all know that weights are heavy, and if you tried to run in a marathon you know that is impossible to run effectively with weights on, that’s why those who do run strip down.

My friends, it’s time to think about Christ and where we stand with Him. He brought us to the place where we were this morning, the first Saturday in 2024. God brought us here, crippled, bent over, with bad knees, grief-stricken, issues going on, bad marriages, kidney problems and Mr. Devil. Yet, we are all here on the first Saturday in 2024. Say it any way you want to, but God is good! Hallelujah! If nobody wants to say God is good, I can get a witness from some in intensive care in the hospital with tubes in and out of their bodies, some in the cancer treatment centers, little babies in St Jude Hospital and others who recognize that any condition on this side of the grave is a “God is good” moment.

But we’ve got to surrender everything this morning to God. Just take it off, don’t look back, and just drop it! It has been this way long enough: God wants to advance and take some of us to the next level. He wants to take the gift he has given us and elevate us, for preparation always comes before elevation! But we must surrender everything to God and drop the weight. Somebody reading ought to say right now, “I’m dropping the weights! I surrender everything!” I’m starting out brand new in 2024! Somebody may say, “My husband or my wife is my weight!” Well, if you’re going to stay with them, bring them to the altar and drop them! Bring your boss, supervisor, your hurt, your pain, your disappointment, your grief, your failures, your mistakes and your confessed sins to the altar, the bible says “Seeing that we are surrounded with such a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every WEIGHT and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with PATIENCE the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2).”

The word “witnesses” does not mean “spectators.” These people are not witnessing what we are doing. They are not watching us from heaven. Oh no, we are the last thing on their minds. In the presence of the Lord, they are not observing us. Rather, they are bearing witness to us that God can see us through, just like God saw them through. What are the “weights” that we should remove so that we might win the race? Everything that hinders our progress. If the Christians are to win the race, we must get rid of the weights and sins that make it hard for us to run.

Most of all, we must keep our eyes on Christ as the goal! He is the Author (Pioneer, Trailblazer) and Finisher of our faith, But we must fully surrender to God and take off the weight. Today is a brand-new year. Let us leave the past and embrace our future, come out of our box, say goodbye to everything that hindered us in 2023, drop the weights, look to Jesus and embrace what God has for you in 2024.