“One More Chance…!”

“One More Chance…!”
We thank God for his grace that we have come to the end of another calendar year. While evaluating the activities of the year just ended, you’ll be making new year resolutions. However, to make concrete your resolution you have to plan. Planning is deciding in advance what you want to do, how to do it and when to do it. It is the determination of a course of action so as to achieve a desired result.
By today you must have evaluated the goals you set for 2018 to find out whether your objectives were met or not. This is easy to realise if you had put in place the right measurement and evaluation tools necessary for any strategic management.
You are about to enter a new year. What do you think is going to be different in the new year? What is your vision for the new year? After evaluating the year just ended, what and where do you want to improve upon?
These questions and more can help you put up a good strategic plan to set in motion your vision or resolution. While those who are business oriented would want to see how this works for their organisations, what we are proposing here is a spiritual project.
My friend, you are God’s spiritual project! God made a strategic plan to plant you as a fig tree. What he hoped to achieve was fruits of the spirit from you. For three years he kept expecting the fruits, but there was nothing.
Just when God was considering that you are an unprofitable project and must be cut down because you are wasting the soil, Jesus Christ (the gardener) pleads on your behalf. “Sir, leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig round it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down”(Lk.13:6-9).
My friend, a lot of people whom you knew have died like fowls. Some were not even opportuned to receive a decent burial because they were dumped in the bushes where only skeletons were later on discovered.
You are alive today not because you are better than them.
The blood of Christ has pleaded for you. You have been given an opportunity to bear fruits worthy of repentance!
As you end the year make a strategic plan for a spiritual project for your life. Set up strategic management mechanisms for proper measurement and evaluation if you must achieve your spiritual goals.
Pray for wisdom, meditate and allow inspiration to flow. Pray the Holy Spirit to strengthen your willpower for you to be able to overcome the temptations that leads you astray!
Remember that it is by grace that you are still alive! Remember also that you are alive just because Christ intercedes for you expecting you to give worthy fruits to the Master!
We wish you a blessed last day of the year! Peace be with you! Happy New Year!