I’ve always been one for setting goals. I love the feel of the New Year and applying necessary practices to embolden my vision for the future. The last couple of years, along with my goals, I usually have a simple statement, phrase, or a word that sums up the theme or focus for the next season of life. Last year it was a question.

This year it is one word: ASK.

Are you ready for a big ask New Year?

Nancy D. Solomon loves to tell people:

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”

God’s Word is chock full of promises and examples of asking.

Jacob wrestled all night with God and wouldn’t let go until he received a blessing (Genesis 32). Israel was instructed to ask God for His mercy and intervention when they had fallen into hard times for disobedience (Deuteronomy 4:32). Elisha boldly asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.

In Gibeon, the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said, “Ask what I shall give you.” Solomon didn’t respond selfishly. He asked for wisdom to know how to govern God’s people rightly, to know the difference between good and bad. As a result of his unselfish asking and pure motives, God not only granted him what he asked for (wisdom), but He also added to the mix what Solomon didn’t ask for: wealth, honor, and long life to go with it (1 Kings 3).

This is an awesome snapshot of the heart of God, our heavenly Father. Ephesians 3:20 promises us that He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to His power at work within us.

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11)

Othniel appears as the first judge of Israel after the death of Joshua (Judges 3:9). His wife Achsah was the daughter of Caleb (Joshua 15:16, 17; Judges 1:13). He gained her hand as a reward for his bravery in leading a successful expedition against Debir. In the very next verse (1:14), before the honeymoon is even over, Achsah urges her new husband to “ask” her father for a field. What made her so quick to petition her father immediately for a blessing (v.15)? She already knew her father’s heart and how he would respond!

Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). When we are abiding in God’s Word, we know the Father’s heartbeat. We see His character more clearly. His desires become our desires; His passion becomes our passion. When our hearts are rightly aligned with His affinities, there is much incentive to ask.

The more we know the Father’s heart, the more we are going to ask boldly that which is in line with His desire and His will.

If we are not abiding in His Word then our asking will become selfish: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:3).” That’s why God’s Word is so important in our understanding of His character and our own selfish ambitions. We need humility to know the difference. But when we ask according to His will, we know He hears us and we are confident that our asking will be rewarded (1 John 5:14-15).

Remember, asking is God’s idea to begin with.

• Psalm 2:8 – Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
• Mark 11:24 – Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
• John 14:13-14 – Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
• Matthew 21:22 – And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.
• John 16:24 – Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Are you ready for a big ask New Year?

What if your New Year became defined by what you had the courage to ask for?

Get into God’s Word daily—and ask boldly.

“ASK” is my word for the New Year.

The post Are You Going to Have a Big Ask New Year? appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

1. Get comfortable with your own skin. Stop trying to be someone else. No one else can be you. Only you can.

2. Let go and let God. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (NLT). What might your New Year look like if you actually did this?

3. Shed the Someday Syndrome. Stop thinking that someday you will catch that big break, experience some grand miracle, or find the hidden secret to contentment. Live in the moment and embrace your NOW.

4. Release the emotional toxins. Don’t let anger, resentment, bitterness, or grudges take root in your life. Take back your joy, peace and happiness by daily giving your emotions to God.

5. Accept grace as your FREE gift to grow. There is nothing you could ever do to make God love you less, or more. His love for you is perfect, though you are not. But He also loves you too much to leave you the way you are. Celebrate God’s grace in your brokenness, but don’t let it keep you stuck in your brokenness. Grace is your catalyst to grow—to get unstuck!

6. Walk in humility. Be ready to admit your mistakes and reconcile your failures quickly. This will give you more influence than you ever imagined.

7. Determine to overflow with generosity. Let your life be a constant outpouring of blessings to others. Seek out needs to meet around you—even more so, not less, when you find your life constrained financially. The road out of constraints isn’t paved with selfishness; it’s paved with generosity. Giving is the highest form of living!

8. Find your tribe. Don’t settle for pseudo community (online community). Get to church and live in real fellowship with others. The best way to discover loyalty in friendship is to become loyal in friendship. Go out of your way to contribute to community. It will pay you back more richly than you invested yourself.

9. Live with an eternal perspective. Maximus the Gladiator was right: “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” This world is temporary. Social acceptance and popularity is fleeting. Money and possessions will pass. Live from the timeless core values that give eternal perspective to your life. Play to the audience of ONE. Make much of Jesus. You will never get to heaven and hear Jesus say, “You were just too passionate about me. You went overboard with your faith.” Jim Elliot said, “Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” Eternity hangs in the balances.

10. Take a new risk this year. Peter Drucker admonished, “There is the risk you cannot afford to take, there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.” This year will present you with an opportunity, a risk, that you cannot afford NOT to take. Be ready. My book “AUDACITY: Find Your Crazy. Change The World.” is a great resource on this subject!

The post 10 Challenges for the New Year appeared first on Jimmy Larche.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

After Roosevelt died in his sleep, the vice-president said, “Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake there would have been a fight.”

I can never read this quote without finding a smile. Life is no place for the timid!

Paul gave a similar outlook in 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 (NIV). This could be described as the Apostle’s Man In The Arena speech:

We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

What’s your man in the arena speech?

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