Hey everyone, this is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, and we are so glad that you're here today.

You know, you can lose your money, your health, and even the people you love.

But you can never lose God's love for you.

Stay tuned today as Rick continues his new series called The Key to Hope.

So now here's Rick with part one of a message called What's Holding You Back?

I love New Year's because New Year's are a time for new beginnings and fresh starts.

And obviously God figured out that human beings need a lot of fresh starts and new

beginnings, because he gives us so many of them. We get one every 365 days, and then we actually

get one every about 30 days with a new month, then we get a new beginning every week, every seven

days, and then we even get a new beginning every 24 hours.

Now, why does God break up life into little bite-sized pieces so we can have new beginnings?

Well, because we blow it, that's why.

We blow it a lot, and we need fresh beginnings.

Now, the Bible often compares life to a marathon race.

Now, this is not a race that you're in a hurry to get through.

It's not to see who can get to the fastest and first at the finish line.

It's an endurance race to see who simply finishes.

Do you finish the race of life faithfully?

And as we've said many times, life is preparation for eternity and God is watching.

Now, serious runners always strip down when they're running a race.

They don't carry a lot of baggage.

They don't wear a lot of extra clothes.

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