Spirit-filled 2023

By Matt Hunt

So what does 2023 hold for you? Hold for me? CrossLife? Well we don’t know all the answers to these questions until we finish 2023 and can look back in hindsight, however, we can have a heart of aspiration for what God might do in and through us individually and as a community in the next four months.

That’s sometimes the essence of January, isn’t it. To think about our goals, our hopes perhaps our fears as well. There are four words I’ve been brooding on me for my life but even for what God might do through us as a church for 2023 are these: joy, intentionality, purpose, discipling.

I want 2023 to be filled with joy; Joy in Jesus, joy in the holy spirit, joy in life. I don’t want to have this year to be a year of drudgery hurt and pain alone. I want the presence of God in all that happens, and we do as Levi tells us, 'the joy of the Lord is your strength.'

I want this year to be a year of purpose. Do you? When things are achieved, with things that are fulfilled, where the next steps are taken along the lines of how God is leading me, and leading us. I want things to be done.

Related to that, I want to be intentional about what’s ahead of me in 2023. When curveballs and things from left-field hit me, I want to be able to be flexible and respond to them by select with the same intentionality same desire same plan to honour Jesus.

Then finally discipling, I want to be a person who influences others on their journey toward and with the Lord Jesus in 2023. I want to encourage others on the same journey in 2023 that we might be a place that has a discipling culture. At the foundation of all that we do is the making of disciples from all nations.

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20

I want 2023 to be a year with,
Joy. Purpose. Intentionality. Discipling.

There are four words for 2023 certainly for my life, maybe for CrossLife, maybe plans for your life? Now may you know God‘s leading as you went into 2023 and my we know it together