As you know, some days are certainly especially memorable, maybe in a good way. Hopefully, your wedding anniversary is very memorable for you and you, in fact, remember it every year, husbands. Maybe in a bad way though, in a sorrowful way. You come to a certain day every year and you're reminded that this is the anniversary of some tragedy or sadness that struck your life. Maybe even in a community way, there's something that everybody in the United States, of course, remembers where we were. on the day we heard, if you were alive at that time and conscious at that time, when you heard about the towers being struck by airplanes on September 11th. Some days, though, are especially memorable, but Jesus reminds us here in our text this morning, Luke 9.23, that every day of your life actually is important. It's not just the ones that are especially memorable. It's not just the ones that perhaps you celebrate or you at least recognize the anniversary of. But no, every day of your life and of my life is important. Therefore, it is necessary, it is urgent that we make conscious, careful decisions about how we're going to spend each day. This is not a call from Jesus, let's understand him correctly, merely to be organized. In the new year, you need to get out your planner that you neglected last time, get out your monthly planner and be more detailed in your time management. This is a call to live a life that is prioritized. And not just a general vague sense that some things are more important than other things, but an urgent An urgent compulsion, not this thing that stays always in the back of our mind that we ought to be doing some things that we're not doing, but no, an urgent compulsion to build your day, your every day, around certain overriding priorities because they are just that important. They really are that important that each and every day we dare not neglect certain things. Jesus here in the text could have said simply, anyone wanting to be my disciple will have to deny themselves and follow me. He could have just put it very, very, well, that's a strong statement itself, isn't it? But he could have just said that. He could have merely said that. He could have said, anyone, and that's striking, doesn't matter if you're just now considering following Jesus for the first time, perhaps, and you're weighing in your mind the challenges and or the promises of that decision. Or if you have been a Christian for decades now, and perhaps in your mind, you know, you've read your Bible through even perhaps several times, and you go to church maybe most Sundays, and so I don't necessarily today, on this day, need Jesus at every moment of this day, do I? But Jesus doesn't just say, anyone wanting to be my disciple will have to deny themselves. That's striking in and of itself. but he purposefully includes this one game-changing, life-transforming word, daily. And in the original language, it's exactly as it is represented for us here. You must take up your cross daily. That word is pregnant with meaning and purposefully put right where Jesus meant for it to be. We are to follow Jesus Christ, you and I, daily. Not occasionally, not frequently, not regularly, but daily. So I want to consider together the urgency of this command of Jesus to follow him every day in this first Sunday of the new year, in our discipleship, in our devotional life, that each and every day we are following Jesus. every day. So let me just let you know what in what direction I'll be heading. First of all, I want to point out to you the need for a daily discipleship, which of course Jesus himself here prescribes. Secondly, I want to consider what daily discipleship looks like, because I think sometimes we can Either one, burden ourselves down with inaccurate ways of thinking about daily discipleship, or two, we can just not think about it and not have, therefore, accurate views either. And then secondly, what daily discipleship does not look like. So, I want to first think about together the need for a daily discipleship, the important things And this should go without saying, right? The important things are the eternal things. The important things are the things that are going to last forever. There are many, many things that call for your attention and for my attention, for our affections each day. There are many things that call to us calling us away and our attention away from Jesus Christ. But there are only things surrounding the person of Jesus Christ that will last forever. The psalmist prayed in Psalm 90 verse 12 that God would teach him to number his days, to understand his finitude, the smallness, the shortness, the brevity of his life, so that, he says, I, as I ought to, apply my heart to wisdom. If I am accurately understanding my life here, then the necessary conclusion of that will be, the psalmist says, prioritizing what I'm going to do while I am here. And so, this is a helpful measurement in a lot of ways for us, even now, isn't it? This is a kind of barometer for our awareness of our own brevity, of our lives. If we know that our life is short and that has sunk in deep, then, the psalmist says, it necessarily teaches us to apply our hearts to wisdom. It demands of us that we prioritize our lives. So it's a helpful thing to ask, isn't it? I can ask myself, am I going to live forever? Of course the answer is no, but that's not the question. The question is, am I living in the realization that my time here on this earth is short? Teach us to count our days so that we will make our days count, as someone has put it. There's a shortness, a smallness to even the longest life on earth. I mean, that's why the Scriptures even refer to our every human life as vapor. It's that brief. In the span of eternity, in the span of even human history, our lives are that brief. So there's a shortness, a smallness to even the longest life, but there is also a bigness, an importance to even the shortest life. Because every one of us here, every one of us is made to live, to exist forever. But we only have a certain number of days. that we will live on this earth. How will we spend it? And so that's why the psalmist says, if I am accurately thinking about my life, it will cause me to live more wisely. Peter impresses us with this same reality in 1 Peter very bluntly, doesn't he? And it's striking also because he's even writing to persecuted saints who probably are wrestling with the brevity of their life, the fact that their life is fragile, that it is, in fact, they're facing persecution, they've been chased out of their homes, they've been scattered abroad for the faith. So very much, you would think, perhaps we should remind these saints of just comforting truths, but no, Peter says, you know what? All flesh is like grass. In fact, it's like a flower. All of us just look at any flower and one of the things that we treasure about it is its delicacy, its beauty, but we also know it is not going to be here long. All flesh is like grass. It's one day going to wither. It's one day going to not be here. But, Peter says, the word of the Lord is not like that. The word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached to you." And so, although we try to ignore it, our lives are obviously undeniably temporary. And when we speak the gospel, though, when we speak the gospel, because that's the contrast Peter is saying, he's saying, on one hand, flesh, all flesh, no matter how long you live, no matter how short your life is, it's all like grass, it's all like flowers, it's all fading, it's all going away. But on the other hand, the Word of the Lord is going to endure forever. And this Word of the Lord is the gospel which is preached to you. And so in contrast to the brevity and temporariness of everything else you can spend your temporary life on, in contrast to that when we speak the gospel, when we live out the implications of the gospel each day, our transitory grass-like fading flower existence on earth takes on a new majesty, a new meaning. And that's why Peter even continues in the very next verses and goes on and says, lay aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, That will grow you. If so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. So we are to live according to eternal realities, eternal priorities, yet with urgency because of our own brevity. That's what Jesus is reminding us of when he says that every single day we must take up our cross. A perfect summary of this kind of living comes from Jesus' own lips regarding his own life. In John 9, 4, Jesus recognized that while of course being the eternal Son of God, Even he said this. because of the brevity of his time on earth, I must work the works of him who sent me. I must do it because, I must do it while it is day, because the night is coming when no one can work." And so, he applied this very concept of brevity to himself, the eternal Son of God. And said, I must today, while the day is existing, as long as I have day, as it were. As long as I'm here, as long as I have opportunity, I must apply myself, I must give myself to the things that my Father has given me to do. The urgency is intensified, not just because of our temporariness, but because of everything in our own hearts and in the world around us that is conspiring to lead us in the opposite direction. It's not just that we're here for a brief time and sometimes we forget it, but the fact is, is that our own heart inside us and the world around us is conspiring to lead us in the opposite direction of self-denial each day for the glory of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 3, the writer of Hebrews says, to exhort each other, you and me, Christians, to exhort one another daily while it is called today Why? Why such an urgency? Why is it so important that we do it today? Why not tomorrow? Why not next week? Why not make this a New Year's resolution next year? Lest any of you, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. So here we have, on one hand, the writer of Hebrews impressing us with how deceitful sin is. That it can deceive you in a day. It can take over your heart. It can lead you in false paths in a single day. But also, not just the swiftness with which it deceives, but the urgency, therefore, with which we must battle. The implication of this daily, urgent battle with sin is that you, You, right now, are being tempted in some way to sin. I mean, that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. He's saying, exhort each other every day, lest, in case, any one of you could be led astray by the deceitfulness of sin today. And so the implication is that every one of you and myself included, every one of us are today being tempted in some way to walk away from Jesus. Sin is right now telling you some lie, seeking to draw you away from Christ in some way. It doesn't matter to Satan which way you end up, as long as you believe the lie. And the writer of Hebrews reminds us that sin is lying, though. It's lying to us, causing us to harden our hearts and draw away from God in unbelief, in verse 12. When we give in to any sin, the writer of Hebrews is saying, we are not able to think as clearly and as joyfully and as trustingly as we did before. He says, take heed, guard yourselves, dear Christian brethren, lest there be in any one of you In any of you, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Each sin is a sign of some unbelief. Notice how he says that. In you, an evil heart of unbelief. On one hand, he's saying, sin is trying to deceive you. And then he turns around and says, so you must guard yourself because any one of us can give in to an evil heart of unbelief. So at the basic foundation of every sin that we are tempted by and given to is what? Unbelief. It is the fact that somehow we have trusted in a lie rather than trusting in Jesus. Whether the sin is lust, or anger, or pride, or greed. Sin can tell us the lie that satisfaction is found somewhere else than in Jesus Christ. It promises fulfillment through sensual pleasure, or putting others down, or lifting myself up, or gaining more stuff, or whatever the lie is in probably all of those lives right now. are being presented to you in some form or other. But this is a lie. True and lasting joy is only found in the path and in the presence of the living God. Everything else, everything else, is ultimately just a dead, limp substitute that has been painted and polished and perfumed to look enticing, but is fast, fast dying. But how swiftly, the writer of Hebrews says, we give in to the lie anyway. We need daily exhorting, lest sin have its hardening effects on our hearts. It can happen, the writer of Hebrews says, to any of you. We can walk faithfully for a week, for a decade, for half a lifetime, for half of 2019. and then we can suddenly fall in a day. Constant vigilance, the exhortation of others, is needed in order to avoid sin's pitfalls today, no matter how successful I've been yesterday. And so the writer presses the urgency of our situation. It is only called today for 24 hours. Brothers and sisters, think about it. We're already on the sixth day of the new year. Can you believe that? And let me just confess this, because I was just talking to someone yesterday about this, and they were expressing discouragement about the fact that their prayer life already is not what they were hoping for it to be in the new year. And this is the first Saturday of the new year, as I was talking to them yesterday. And as I was trying to encourage this person, just saying, so you didn't read your Bible yesterday, so you didn't pray yesterday, start reading your Bible again today. Get up and do it again. And even as I was giving him that exhortation, I had to confess to him, you know what, actually, your confession helped me recognize my year hasn't exactly started off well either. I was on holiday, I was out of town, schedule thrown off, so my Bible reading wasn't each day what it should have been. My prayer life each day, the things that I normally, the prayer list that I normally go down, were neglected on some days. And so here it is, the sixth day of the new year, and I'm having to preach this message to myself. Not a single day, not a single day. should go by without us pursuing our Savior. It's only called today for 24 hours, then tomorrow will come, and soon the next day, and soon the end of all days. And so today is already begun, soon to be over. The writer reminds us, and our Lord is already that much closer to returning. Do not put off the vital work of repentance, of faithfulness, of pursuing Jesus with all your might. So here is the fact that Jesus gives before us the need for a daily discipleship. But secondly, I want to say, to just briefly describe from Scripture what daily discipleship looks like. This is a great exercise, by the way. I encourage you to do this. I think I did it several years ago for the first time, and ever since then, I've never ceased to be struck by it, is just get out a concordance, or use your online Bible search tool, and just search for the word daily, or something along those lines, today, and look at the urgency and the number of things that Scripture presents with urgency that need to be done each and every day. It's striking, actually, and I'll just mention a few of them to you. First of all, what does daily discipleship look like? The Bible says daily discipleship looks like daily conversation with God. Matthew 6.11, of course, is the famous Lord's Prayer. And we are to pray, give us this day our daily bread. And as Matthew Henry comments on that, that gives us the date stamp for our letter to God. Every day there ought to be a letter going up to God with the stamp of that day on it saying, this day, Lord, I need bread and I can't provide it to myself. It doesn't matter how much I have in the pantry. It doesn't matter what else is going on. I can't make myself live by my own strength. I need you today. The psalmist says, be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am crying to you daily, every day. I'm crying out to you. The psalmist, again in Psalm 25, says, prays for the Lord to lead him in the truth of God and to teach him. And he says, this is why, because you, God, you are my salvation. On you, it is on you that I am waiting all day long." That's a great prayer. By the way, if you need a prayer to pray for yourself in this coming year, Psalm 25, highly recommend that for anyone, no matter what your age or how long you've been a Christian. Psalm 25 is a great prayer to take to the Lord every day. Lord, you today are my salvation. You today are the one I'm depending on all day long. And it's just as important to listen to God as as it is to talk to God, though. And that's why the psalmist is not only saying, I'm crying out to you every day, but he's also saying, teach me. Because you're the God of my salvation, I don't trust my answers. I don't trust my strength. I don't trust my ability. And so Lord, I need you. And so not only do I want to speak to you, I want to listen to you. I want to learn from you. I want to be around you today. I want you to be my comfortable friend, that I'm not that awkward person that is an acquaintance. Sometimes they say things that make you feel a little uncomfortable, and so you might walk by them in the hallway and smile or something at work, but you're not necessarily pursuing the opportunity to have a further conversation with them. Well, the Bible, God's Word, can feel like that oftentimes. It's kind of, you know, it's there, it's, you know, I'll smile at it, I'll walk around not too far away from the coffee table that it's on, but I don't actually want to begin a conversation with this thing, because sometimes it says awkward things that make me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it says things that, honestly, I just don't even want to hear. Or, you know, sometimes it's hard to understand. And so I'm gonna skirt around, I'm not gonna be close friends with God, listening to him and his word. It's gonna be more kind of, you know, just a friendly acquaintance that we wink at each other as we walk by, and I hope he's having a good day. No, we have to rely on the Lord every day. We not only need to share our troubles with the Lord, unburden our hearts to the Lord, ask for help and forgiveness from the Lord, we need answers, we need guidance, we need the gospel of Jesus Christ applied to our hearts again today, even if we have been a believer for 10 years. And so daily discipleship looks like daily conversation with God, crying out to God, listening to God, learning from God in his word. It also means daily death to self, and that's in our text. That's awkward, isn't it? Because we would have been better with Jesus' instruction here if he had only said, if anyone's wanting to come after me, then follow me and just skip all that stuff in the middle. Oh, okay, just follow you. And so sort of, you know, obey those 10 commandments and try to read my Bible every day. But that's not how Jesus phrases it on purpose. No, if anyone is desiring, no matter who you are, no matter how long you've been a Christian or not been a Christian, there is no one, doesn't matter what you think your spiritual gifts are, doesn't matter what you think your spiritual gifts aren't. You know, maybe you think spiritual giftedness is required to really understand the Bible, because only the pastor seems to really get it. When I open it up, I don't understand it. Or maybe you think, yeah, I'm actually, you know, I've been a Christian for a good while, and I feel like I have certain spiritual gifts, and so today I'm just going to go exercise those spiritual gifts, rather than thinking in terms of Whoever, no matter who you are, if you want to come after Jesus, you have to deny yourself today. And you have to take up Jesus's cross today and follow Him. We are daily tempted to be self-centered. That's just a fact. And that's why Jesus knows this is necessary. We are daily tempted to be self-centered. And so Jesus tells us up front, this is what it's going to require. If you want to follow me, every day you're going to have to die to self. Every day you're going to have to be willing to humiliate your greatest plans and your greatest wisdom and submit it to me, and then listen to my wisdom, receive it whether it agrees with your ideas or not, and then live it out by the grace of God. So it requires daily death to self. It requires daily interaction, as we've already said, in some sense, conversation with God. But I want to dig a little deeper there because the Bible is so clear on this. It means daily interaction with God's Word. If we're not careful, conversation with God can sound like just prayer and not including God's Word. But the Bible is very clear on our need for the Bible. In Acts 17, of course, the noble Bereans are famously commended because instead of even taking the Apostle's Word as just word. Instead, they are commended because they took each thing that was said and searched the scriptures daily to see whether or not these things that were being taught to them were actually true. And in Proverbs chapter 8 and verse 34, wisdom is personified there. And strikingly, wisdom cries out, blessed is the man that heareth me. Blessed is that man that will listen to wisdom, watching daily at my gates. Just waiting. I'm not going to move until wisdom speaks. I'm not going to make a decision until wisdom speaks. I'm not going to set my agenda for the day until wisdom speaks. Watching daily at my door. waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me, the wisdom says, finds life and obtains favor of the Lord." So we need daily interaction with God's Word, which is where wisdom is to be found. And then daily praise to Jesus. In Psalm 72, Psalm 72 is actually a messianic psalm, so it's pointing forward to Christ, to Jesus' coming, and it speaks of the Messiah that He shall daily be praised. Isn't that striking? This Messiah is coming. He will be the fulfillment of all the promises, all the prophecies that I have spoken about Him, and this is one of the things that will be true of Him. Every day, He will be praised. It's not too much. Not too much praise for Jesus. And it's not enough that we praised Him yesterday. Every day He will be praised. And appropriately so, because Psalm 68 reminds us that every day the Lord is loading us with benefits, with blessings. So every day we are receiving from God, Every day, it is appropriate to be praising Jesus. So this is what daily discipleship looks like, and this is just a few. I really encourage you, it's kind of a fun study. Go and just search in Bible Gateway or pull out your concordance and search for daily, each day, these kind of phrases, and see the kinds of things that the Bible says you dare not neglect until tomorrow. But also I want to, and this is just as important, speak to you about what daily discipleship does not look like. It does not, first of all, look like trying to earn salvation each day with your service and or with your self-denial. So we can easily hear Jesus say that, and because of the way we think, we hear Jesus say, anyone who wants to follow after me, who wants to be my disciple, must lay down their life, must crucify themselves, must deny themselves daily to follow me. And we can immediately click in our mind as we are legalists, every one of us by nature, and say, aha, so this is the way to earn God's pleasure. So this is what it is. It's a good Bible reading program, and it's making sure I've got my prayer journal for the year. I bought a cute one with flowers, and as long as I crack that thing every day, God is pleased. No, it's not trying to earn salvation each day with your service, with your self-denial. The writer of Hebrews actually impresses this on us. The very writer, remember, who was saying, it's today, only for 24 hours, get to it! That same writer says this. Jesus, though, does not need daily, daily to offer up a sacrifice for you. Because unlike the priests of the Old Testament who did need every day to offer up a sacrifice for sin, Jesus gave himself on the cross once and for all as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. And so he did this once, the writer of Hebrews says, when he offered up himself, and so he does not ever need to offer himself up again. Because his offering was sufficient, because he paid for your sins on the cross, he does not need to go back there tomorrow when you sin again. And so, listen to me when I say this. Let me speak the gospel to your soul, because your soul needs it. I know, because your soul is like my soul. My soul needs it. When you mess up tomorrow, and you will, so when you mess up tomorrow, and you maybe even remember one thing from my message, and you're thinking, this thing about self-denial every single day, I've already messed up. Don't remember only that. Remember this truth. Jesus does not need to die today, even though I failed today. Because Jesus once, one time, offered up himself for sins. And that offering was sufficient. That offering was sufficient. Jesus knew what I was going to do today. He knew how I was going to fail today. He knew how I was gonna fail tomorrow. And even knowing the rascal that I am, knowing the failure I would be even after I called myself a Christian, He loved me anyway. He called me anyway. He saved me anyway. And He can save me today. He does save me today. by his sufficient cross work, once, once, once offering himself for my sins. Because we feel the insufficiency of our makeup opportunities, you know, to go and undo the bad things we've done or try to do better about the things we haven't done as well as we ought to, we constantly feel this insufficiency, which is real. And so we can tell ourselves, I'm such a rascal, I'm a spiritual idiot. It seems like no matter how hard I try, I can't make myself, I can't get it together. And the gospel says this, the gospel says, you're right. You're absolutely right, you are a spiritual idiot. You can't find the way yourself. And that's why Jesus came. Jesus came for spiritual idiots who could not figure it out on their own, who could not make it work, who could not get it together. And so if that's you today, the gospel is good news. Christ offered himself once and it was a sufficient payment for all our sins. So this is not what Jesus is saying when he says, take up your cross daily to follow me. He's not saying every single day you have to re-earn my pleasure. It doesn't matter how good you did yesterday, today's a new day, start working like a slave again. No, but it also doesn't mean this. Daily discipleship does not look like an easy road for those who follow Christ. And that's so obvious from what Jesus says, right? It does not look like an easy road for those who follow Christ. Romans 8, Paul describes it this way, putting it in terms of Christians, not just himself, but sort of speaks on behalf of every believer in Jesus Christ and says, for your sake, Lord, we are being killed every day. Speaking of daily discipleship, that's not exactly sounding pretty, is it? We are being killed every day. In fact, we're just counted like sheep for the slaughter. I'm just number 46 on the list of sheep being slaughtered today. That's what sometimes it feels like. Just nameless, lost, not just persecution, but failure. It's not an easy road for those who follow Christ. We need daily exhorting, as we've read, daily self-denial, daily praise to Jesus to remind us of what is sure and right and good, even when perhaps we are tempted to, like Peter, look at the waves and think they look so much bigger than Jesus. We need to praise Jesus so that we get an idea of Jesus being the Lord of the waves again. We need daily Bible intake in order to face the daily challenges that life in a sinful world will bring. And so each day of this coming year, I can assure you, because Jesus assures you, you will face challenges. Temptations to sin, as we've already noticed from the book of Hebrews. Difficulties every day of this year. There will be, this is not heaven. This year, you're still living on earth for today. And tomorrow, if you're living on this earth, it's gonna be a day with challenges. It's not going to be an easy road for those who follow Christ. But that's why the psalmist says, be merciful to me, oh God. He that is fighting against me tries to oppress me daily. The psalmist goes on in another psalm to say, I have sorrow in my heart daily. Oh, it's so easy to just read over the psalms, right, and think, oh, that was David though, he's just saying that poetically. No, no, the psalmist knew what it was to have sorrow deep down in his heart every day that threatened his joy. Jeremiah writes, I am in derision daily. Everyone, everyone is mocking me, is the way Jeremiah writes. And so an easy road for those who follow Christ, that's not what Jesus is describing for us. But here's the most important thing, it is not also an unworthy pursuit. Jesus, in spite of all the challenges, in spite of whatever he may ask you to give up for him today, tomorrow, as you deny yourself daily, Jesus is worth our daily attention, our daily affection, our daily sacrifice, our daily self-sacrifice, no matter what it may cost. It's absolutely vital in the midst of all this talk of self-denial and daily discipline and spiritual disciplines and so on, and daily effort, daily challenges, to be reminded in this text, in our text today, to be reminded of what the ultimate gain is. Why would you go through that? Why would you face that? Why would you sacrifice yourself every day? Why would you give up your dreams every day? What makes it worth it for that? This is what the ultimate goal is. Notice that Jesus' call to daily cross bearing, you must pick up your cross every day, or his cross every day, and follow him, is bookended. That command is bookended, that call to discipleship is bookended on both ends by the motivation that makes it all worth it. If you desire to follow me, if you want to be my disciple, That's what makes it all worth it, is that you're following Jesus. You're trying to be more like Jesus, and you are in Jesus's company. You have Jesus as your companion on this daily journey, and that's what makes it all worth it. It's following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. It's walking with Jesus Christ every day, and Jesus being with you is exactly what makes every day, whatever the challenges may be, worth it. So it is to those individuals who desire to come after me and to follow me that Jesus says that daily dying to self will be necessary. Yes, but he never says it's not worth the cost. Because Jesus knows his own glory. He knows his own value. And so he's letting you know the cost, but he's not saying it's not worth it. In fact, he asserts in the very next verse, whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. Whosoever shall lose his life, it must, every day following me, must mean self-sacrifice, taking up my cross every day. But whoever will lose his life for my sake, because I am worth it, because you value me that much, whoever loses, Anything for my sake saves your life. Let us never forget then that Jesus himself, Jesus is our great motivation in this coming year for all these things that we're talking about. To endure the cost of discipleship, that Jesus himself is the goal as we discipline ourselves to daily pursue him in prayer, Bible reading, exhorting one another, worship. All these things are, Jesus is the end of it. Jesus is the companion we have on that journey and that is what makes it all worthwhile. Alexander McLaren, the well-known 19th century British preacher, beautifully sums it up this way, this daily discipleship. You have to live with Jesus day by day. and year by year, and to learn to know Him as we learn to know husbands and wives, by continual experience of a sweet and unfailing love, by many a sacred hour of interchange of affection and reception of gifts and counsels, as you give yourself to Jesus and He has already given Himself to you, and as you ask His counsel and as you cry out to Him and He listens, every day you grow in your relationship with Him and you find, I have found the love of my life. How can I not talk to Him tomorrow? How can I not sacrifice whatever it costs to please Him tomorrow? So in this coming year, may the Lord daily, yes, load you with benefits, with blessings, as you daily pursue His glory, daily dying to self, daily finding comfort and strength and direction in His Word, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Because Jesus is the only thing in all the universe that is worth pursuing every day for every day of your life. May the Lord bless you.