Warm hellos once again friends, brethren, fellow laborers, spiritual family, and scattered children of God from here on the Gulf Coast of lower Alabama. My wife and I pray and hope this finds you doing well, and that again your week has been blessed.

“New Year’s Resolutions” are bombarding us from every angle. In spite of one’s life situation there is always a temporary focus on doing something better with our lives. That’s not completely wrong of and by itself.

What I find most interesting though is that virtually all focuses discussed over the last few days center around physical details on the lives of those who make their resolutions.

There’s a lot going on this world currently, and I find it comforting to know my best defense against becoming overwhelmed by it all is to stay in communication with my Creator through personal Bible study and prayer, as to stay positive, and continue laboring in this calling as a child of God.

At times things seem hopeless if we simply look at what we can see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Now those senses are all important, but all are physical.

If you are thinking about what might be a good place to start your study this upcoming week, (which starts on Sunday), the book of Hebrews is a great reminder that we indeed do not walk or live by merely what we can see! The nervous system has a specific sensory system, dedicated to each sense. Humans have a multitude of senses. Sight (ophthalmoception), hearing (audioception), taste (gustaoception), smell (olfacoception), and touch (tactioception) are the five most commonly recognized that come to mind. But yet what God promises is so very much more real than anything as humans we can sense or have around us.

Yes, it’s so easy to forget and get honed in on any one or all of our five senses.

Also a benefit, one that God reminds us to not forget, is His Sabbath, and fellowship with one another on that day.

Don’t buy into the “hype” and “promises” this physical world has to offer my friends, the end as Solomon writes so clearly in Ecclesiastes is as a vapor…nothing of any substantial value.

In 10 days, we’ll have a new president here in the U.S. Woohoo! Right? Might I ask once again, where is the focus in all of this?

Things are not wrong, as we are blessed as humans to be able to enjoy the physical things God has to offer…but these, like our physical body, are only temporary.

Might I suggest as you begin His Sabbath, you also take time out to read the first 3 chapters of Ecclesiastes, and meditate on what we read? It very much puts things clearly in perspective.

Our hope is that very real Kingdom of God. Our hope is continuing in our calling. Our hope must stay focused on what faith reveals, and trusting in the One from hence comes that Faith.

You might say “this all makes sense.” Do reflect on our five created unique physical senses each of us has been given, and then redirect our focus to that which really makes sense, from a spiritual perspective and be encouraged!

Arms up friends! Our sincere prayers and thoughts are with you daily. Thanks in advance for your heartfelt prayers for us.