As Bible believing Christians the New Year is an opportunity to look back over the past year to see if we were able to make all of the desired changes we set out to do.
- The beginning of a New Year can be a season of new beginnings for us.
- It's a time to look ahead with a sense of anticipation & excitement towards the new things God wants to do in us.
- It is a season of setting new goals and putting into effect those things you have been putting off doing.
- It can be a day of new beginnings for each one of us.
2 Corinthians 4:16b Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
I believe God wants to create a sense of newness in each one of our lives. I believe it is always God's desire that we be filled with a sense of newness and freshness of what He desires and wants to do in our lives. He desires greatly for us to be filled with a renewed sense of purpose and destiny. This is what is really needed before we can give ourselves a good kickstart.
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Newness Comes By Letting Go Of The Past. No matter how miserably we failed in life or in our Christianity, God's desire is for us to receive His forgiveness and move forward.
Psalms 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Hanging on and dwelling on the past is like air moving through a dirty filter. Even though something new and fresh enters into the filter it comes out dirty and tainted because of the filth it must flow through. Take Jonah for example. Jonah's sulking disappointment came from a failure of imagination, a failure of heart. He had no idea what God was doing – the largeness of his love and mercy and salvation.
He had reduced his vocation to his own performance--he was in the right place, doing the right thing--but he interpreted everything through his Jonah ideas, his Jonah desires. – Eugene Peterson, Leadership, Vol. 14, no. 1.
Many times, we too, are in the right place at the right time, but because we are focused on self we miss out on the new things God wants to do through us and for us.
Newness Comes By Hungering & Thirsting For It.
Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.
Newness Comes By Allowing God To Renew Our Spirits. Get in touch with what God wants to do in your life, rather than what you want. David prayed for God to create a new heart and renew a right or steadfast spirit with in him. This should be our heart attitude. God can only create a sense of newness when we yield ourselves to Him with an open and contrite heart.
Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
