“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35 NIV

I recently got a new laptop. My last laptop I purchased was a refurbished MacBook I got for college, a little over ten years ago. It served me well for many papers, messages, and of course blogs I uploaded weekly here for many years. As I headed into this new year, I realized it was time to finally upgrade, as my trusty laptop needed to be tethered to power and wasn’t able to stay up to date.

I love getting something new, you have a moment to start over and reset to what you want things to be. For my laptop, I kept only a few files to transfer and the rest archived on a hard drive, because I didn’t need to keep it all the same, I get to restart and do something different.

I look at this in my day-to-day life as well, I look at each day as a fresh page, nothing written yet and my choices can determine the direction.

Each new day is an opportunity to live out the Gospel message and love others, no matter what.

One of the hardest challenges for me, is to not bring past mindsets into my current thinking. Mindsets believing I’m not good enough or I’ll never be valued can easily pollute the new day in front of me. If I don’t take those thoughts captive, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and there’s no reason for doing it!

We will make mistakes, we will have people that hold a picture of us frozen in certain times, and we will grow and change over the years. What we must do is choose to move forward despite all of that, and continue to press ahead toward who Christ is forming us to be.

I remember graduating high school and desiring to be seen as an adult, yet it was hard for others to see that change. I find that mentality is true in all kinds of stages of life. That’s the beauty of growth and change.

My goal every day, is to wake up and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me and provide for me what I need that day, then choose to live for Christ as best I can.

Am I perfect at this? Of course not, but I have to try. I have to choose to be joyful and be a light even when life throws challenges at me. I have to live like Christ no matter what some believe of me or perceive of me, all I can control is myself, and give it my best try.

My favorite verse comes from the words of Jesus as a charge to His disciples in John 13:34-35, at the top of this post. My heart takes this charge, understanding that the love of Christ has been shown to me, so I need to show the love of Christ to others.

Does the fruit of my life show the spirit alive in me?

Does the fruit of your life show the spirit alive in you?

Every day is a fresh page, an encouraging and empowering mindset, one that gives room for the grace of your mistakes and the hope for the future ahead.

There is a new day in front of each of us, what will we make of it? This doesn’t mean attempting to have the most extravagant day, it simply asks the question of how will you choose to live this new day.

Who will you encourage?

What next step will you take to move yourself forward?

How will you love others so that people will see the light of Christ inside of you?

Every day is a fresh page, you can choose to write whatever you wish, so make it a good story.

Love others because of how loved you are, impact in small ways that will make a lasting impact for years to come.

-Your pastor and friend, Joshua.

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About the Author: Joshua Thomas is a husband, father, and pastor doing what he can to love others the way Jesus did. You can find him reading a good book, sipping warm tea, taking pictures, or dreaming. He may not have it all figured out, but the journey is the best part. You can find him on the social media he uses Tik Tok, Bluesky and Instagram