Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning – Albert Einstein
The end of one year is incidentally the beginning of another. It is a new season, 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.” 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 appraise past years; 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. In a new start, 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 witnessing. 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 phone, 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. 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. 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 their faults or sickness 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 witnessed yet another beginning.
New Year is an opportunity to clean up our mess. We clean our wardrobes, book shelves and give out wearing and books we no longer need. “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 could donate to Church denominations and Faith Based Organizations 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. We purge our hearts and let go things that hinder God’s blessings; renew our minds to accommodate what God is doing daily and 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 hinder moving forward. Everyone 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. God 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.” “Cheers to the New Year and another chance to get it right” – Oprah Winfrey
We celebrate this new beginning because those who died yesterday don’t 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 writes His word in the heart of every believer; that no man will show another 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.
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. New Year 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. “The New Year stands before us, like a chapter in a book waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals” – Melody Beattie. I wish you and love ones a fruitful New Year
Reach: Evangelist/Elder Ogbonnaya, Godswill at: Email: weefreeministries@yahoo.com; Web: weefreeministries.org OR P. O. Box 720035, Houston , Texas , 77272 . Phone: 832.881.3929©.