Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
New Year, Strong Start
A new year only feels new if we choose a new way to move through it. We open with a fresh frame for growth: stop chasing flawlessness and aim for steady progress that actually sticks. Rather than measuring yourself by perfect outcomes, we talk about maturing in character, letting grace carry the load you’ve been trying to lift alone, and finding practical next steps when motivation fades. You’ll hear simple ways to filter inputs, reset your focus, and trade reactivity for a grounded, hopeful posture that endures.
If you’re ready to start the year with peace, resilience, and practical faith, this conversation offers a simple roadmap you can begin today.
If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a strong start, and leave a quick review—your words help others find the message and begin their year with hope.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Good morning everyone and happy new year. Here we are, brand new year, a brand new start, and we're looking forward to all of the great things we're going to see this year. Now I'm not naive enough to think that we're not going to have any problems this year. I know they're going to come, but we have a chance right now to make this brand new start in this new year. And so today I want to bring you three thoughts that I hope will help you to be able to experience all that God has for you in this brand new year. The first key I want to give us is this let's strive for progress and not perfection. Now I know some of you that will go against your very core and that you may even not like saying that. After all, it does say in Matthew 5 48 that we are to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. But if you look at it a little bit more closely, it's not really saying that we can within ourselves be perfect. That same verse in the Amplified Bible helps a little bit. It says, you therefore must be perfect, growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity as your Heavenly Father is perfect. It's a growing process that we are to go through. You all probably have seen the bumper sticker that says, I'm a Christian, I am not perfect, I'm just forgiven. And in their lives a basic truth. In and of ourselves, we are not perfect. We will never be perfect in this world. But the grace of God covers our imperfections and makes us perfect before God. So if we work through this year, allowing God's grace and power and understanding to grow in us, we will begin to show more and more of the perfection of Christ through us. It's not that we become perfect, it means that we become better at reflecting and showing the goodness and perfection of God in the world around us. So let's see some progress this year. Let's make a determinant in our minds that we want to grow and become more and more like Jesus Christ. And when we do that, we will be stronger, more at peace, and wiser. One of the outcomes of that growth then becomes our second key for this year, which is make a determination right now to not let what you are going through get into you. There is so much overwhelming negativity around us, and it seeps into us and seeps into our minds and into our souls and into our thoughts. It's just like this giant vapor that creates cancerous thought patterns and emotions deep within us, and it destroys us on the inside. We need to remember that we are like a boat sailing on the ocean. We can be surrounded by water and that's okay. But once the water starts to get into the boat, that's when the boat has a problem. So this year, when we are faced with all kinds of negativity and struggles and trials, we need to remember what God is wanting to show us. John chapter 16, verse 33 says, I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world. Christ has overcome the world. He has overcome the negative things that are outside of us, the negative water that surrounds the ships of our lives. He has overcome all of that, and you and I have the power of Christ within us, and we have the ability through God's grace and love to reject the negativity, to reject the darkness and the fear and the anger, and live in the peace that God has within us. As long as we keep what is outside of us outside of us and we don't let it get into us. And our third key today is be consistent. Pastor Mark Batterson said, Our job is to consecrate ourselves to God, and if we do that consistently, day in and day out, God is going to show up and show off. That's what we need to do. We need to be consistent in loving God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind. We need to be consistent in seeking Him. And when we do that, then God's able to work in us and to work through us. So as we look at this year, let's not get all hung up on trying to be perfect. Let's not get bogged down by the mistakes that we will make along the way. Take it for granted right now that each one of us are going to make mistakes this year. Each one of us will face problems. Each one of us will face trials. They are going to come. It's a guarantee from Scripture that we are going to face trials and tribulations. They will come. So let's go into this year not with the expectancy that those things will not happen, but that we know how we will deal with each one of them when they do happen. We have our minds set on what God wants us to be and what God wants us to do. And when we face this year, we face it with the knowledge that we can overcome. First John 5 5 tells us this. So the one who conquers the world is the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. The one who conquers the world, that doesn't mean we become the king of the world. It means that we don't let the world get into us. We conquer the world by keeping all of its negative influence outside of us. We keep it away from us so that it doesn't drag us down and tear us apart from the inside out. God has given us victory and freedom over that. And that's part of our relationship and growing with Him. So let's keep our focus ahead on all of these things. Let's focus on progress, not perfection. Let's make sure that we don't let what we're going through get into us. And let's make the decision right now to live lives that are consistent, where we make our decisions, we make our choices, and we let our yes be yes and our no be no, and we are committed to follow through consistently in our belief and our faith in what God has said and what God has given us. So happy New Year, everyone. This is the year that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk to you again on Monday. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.
