Celebrate new beginning
“Cheers to the New Year and another chance to get it right” – Oprah Winfrey
The end of one year is incidentally the beginning of another. It is a new season and celebrated with lots of fun and rejoicing. This new start brings to mind the words of T. Elliot, a popular American poet, “What we call the beginning is often the end; and to make the end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” Again there is a popular saying that whatever has a beginning also has an end. Our beginning is where we start all over or begin to move ahead with life. Before you can move ahead you must lay aside the baggages of the previous year. A year is made of 12 calendar months or 52 weeks. The first month January is named after Roman god, Janus. This god is said to have two faces and could look ahead towards the future and back at the past at the same time.
A new beginning gives us an opportunity to look back on past years; also re-examine our lives and see where we erred and failed. Some may not be errors, but what we could have done another way. It gives us a rare privilege to count our blessings and be thankful to God who has given us good health, long life, wealth and wisdom as well as all manner of blessings. A new start is when we break from the past; you may have to hate or even get dissatisfied with your past, change the way you perceive things and your attitude to change. Through experiences we know what we did wrong and attempt to correct them; pursue what you did well and try to improve in the present year. It could be in the relationship with our maker: how much time we spend with Him each passing day? How much time we study and meditate on His word as well as in evangelizing. How zealous we were in the things of God? God requires our time, talents and treasures. Is God first in our priority list before spouse, bills, sports and relations? If we weigh the time we spend on television or internet or other leisure’s, would God find first place?
Many people celebrate end of the year only; they fail to reason that if the year did not start, it would not end. Just like people celebrate the death of Jesus Christ and not His birth. Again the end of any year comes the beginning of a new one. While they celebrate the end of the year with thanksgiving to God for all He has done; they should not forget to thank Him for what He is about to do. The adage that when you thank a giver, he gives more applies faithfully here. Some people go to Church once a year on the first of January. They are simply over-whelmed by God’s great care and protection; so they come forth with thanksgiving. It does not matter whether they fell sick through the course of the year, lost a business deal or involved in a wreck. The most important thing is that they are alive and in good state; have also seen yet another beginning. Again New Year is a great gift from God.
New Year is an opportunity to clean up our mess. We bring down from the wardrobe, clothes we have not worn for sometime; pack shoes we have not put on for a while. We should look at our book shelves and pick out books we no longer need. It’s better put them in the hands of those who need them than to be laying waste in closets/ storages. “If one keeps what he/she does not need, of what value is it? We must start to learn that giving brings blessing. It is better to give than to receive.” We have some Church denominations and Faith Based Organizations we could make donations to for onward reach to the needy, poor, orphans and widows; also the less privileged members of our society. As we give out to the needy; God in his mercy shall replenish and compensate us with new and something bigger. The new beginnings also opportune us to empty and purge our hearts. We let go things that hinder God’s love and blessings on us and also renew our minds to enable us accommodate what God is doing daily and about to do in future.
A new beginning comes with new things. God promises, “Behold I will do a new thing now………., make a way in the wilderness and create water in the desert” {Isaiah. 43:19}. We can only benefit from the new things God has promised when we reposition ourselves, renew our minds and neither remember the former things nor consider the things of old. Letting go of the past and appreciating new things, new day and new season is our calling. Know that your past does not equal your future. We must never celebrate failure or build a memorial [remembrance arcade] for our past. We should bury past failures, losses, delays and bitterness; they could be hindrances in our moving forward. Every one has an ugly past or a sour experience of failure; you don’t have to dwell on your past. Your past has become part of your history. Some pains are too severe to forget and some events are just unforgettable. Listen to God’s commandments; forget the past things and remember them no more. If you keep remembering them Satan will use the negative past to paralyze your future. Resist Satan and he will flee away. James Long says “One reason God created time was that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past.”
We celebrate this new beginning because those who died yesterday had no privilege to enjoy the brightness of the new dawn. We have to give God all the glory for the great things He has done. In 365 days, God showed His love and kept His covenant in His compassion, faithfulness and providing salvation through the death and resurrection of His son, the Lord Jesus Christ. By the salvation God offers, He continually calls His people to Himself. He promises a new era of deliverance and righteousness [Isaiah 48:6-7]. God through the effects of the cross writes His word in the heart of every believer; that no man will tell anyone any more this is the straight path. We celebrate this New Year because it is a gift from God, and adds no sorrows. Whatever is the handwriting of the enemy against us shall have no effect in this new dawn. Little wonder God wants us to move from our yesterday, because heaven will compensate us for all our shame, defeat and delays.
“Living the Christian life is good, but finishing it is our calling”. We should learn to run the race according to the rules. Keep living by the same standards we have obtained. Let these be the marks, boundary lines and limits. We should neither hold different standards nor being turned by every wind of doctrine. We should determine serving God despite all odds. We should strain for God because He deserves our best. As we press on towards the goal, we should devote ourselves to living for Christ. God is watching; so live a life that is pleasing to Him. Our Daily Manna says, “In this New Year, determine to keep your memories freshen because your best years are still ahead. Let the scars of the past grow fainter and keep hope alive.” Little surprised a hymn composer writes, “O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and hope for years to come.”
We should celebrate joyfully, and with boldness enter the New Year pleading the blood of Jesus. By new and living way, God has consecrated this new life through the veil [His flesh], so that we’ll be able to weather through the storm of life. God surrounds us with the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that every yoke of the enemy is burnt and destroyed. Appreciate your new beginning and be thankful; for it is your season to bear good fruit and dwell in his presence. The Spirit of the Lord is saying: let go and let God…… As we go into the New Year, we have not been unto it before; we need to sanctify ourselves and focus on the First and Last. He will lead us into the year and see us through it. No matter how tough the year might be the mighty hand of God will uphold, sustain and satisfy us and lead us through it. If God is gracious enough to bring us to it, He will take us through it. Have a fruitful New Year and enjoy your new season of renewed relationship with the King of glory.
Reach Evangelist Ogbonnaya, Godswill at: weefreeministries@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 720035, Houston, Texas, 77272.