Brethren, let’s pause and think for a moment about the New Year. Every emerging year has harder and tougher challenges. Do you have some goals and plans for the New Year? Then take a cursory look at your past and the present; making some proposals backed with determinations in your heart. You have to make plans and get achievable objectives for the year. Evaluate the past year’s activities and how you faired and re-examine those areas of strengths and weaknesses noting where you fell short. We may not know what the year holds but when we know who holds the future, that’s all that matters and we need. The Maker of the heavens and the universe, God Almighty, knows and holds the future. As a matter of fact, He knows the end from the beginning. God controls the seasons and times of the world and we have to get right with Him, make Him our compass and begins the year with Him.
The journey with God begins with accepting His saving grace in Christ Jesus and His salvation as well as making Jesus, the Lord of your life. If we begin with Christ and allow His light to shine in and through us, it affects and influences our environment, the people we meet and have contact with in life. You can’t succeed in the journey of 12 months without God, even if you don’t believe He exists. You can’t be the person you want to be or live rightly without being in tune with God, your maker. When God is in charge, He orders your footsteps and you live right and do right. No matter how distressed and devastated your life has been, if you seek God and repent of your sins, He will forgive you and have mercy on you and avail you His grace. Without being saved, all you are and do has no meaning and does not lead to righteous living. The New Year is God’s way of giving us another chance to right our wrongs and to start afresh.
Many of us have made numerous blunders and mistakes in our past and failed short of expectations, experienced uncountable setbacks and failures in our life’s journey. We have failed ourselves, marriages, families, Churches, organizations and Christian callings; allowed these mistakes, setbacks and failures to enslave, to demoralize, to depress us to the point of shame and no longer enjoying our faith life. In reaction many have tried so many things including the 3 W’s: wine, weed and women but end up failing the more, perhaps beyond repairs and redemption and feel ashamed of ourselves and our relationship with God, our Maker. But such feeling is detrimental to our moving forward or making a fresh start. In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly but a thief (devil, adversary or accuser of brethren) comes only to steal, kill and destroy.” The devil wants to tie us to our fallen state, our past deeds and our past mistakes. He is quick to accuse us, reminding us of our ugly past, thereby discouraging, frustrating and keeping us living in our past; for as long as we live in the past, we cannot move forward or make a fresh start.
I have good news for you today. God want you to make a fresh start in life, have new beginning and do something new in your life; so you could enjoy God’s goodness in full. I do not know about you. At the beginning of last year, I made some resolutions. I couldn’t do all that I proposed to do. I know I am not alone in this. I wonder what could have been the reason for the hindrances. I started well but lost interest and direction somewhere along the line. Blessed is a person who keeps on going when times are hard (James 1:12)
But Isaiah 43:18 says forget about where you have been or what happened in the past. Don’t think about the past. The past has become part of your history. God is far more interested in your future than He is in your past; Yes, forget about the former things. Your past neither influence your ‘morrow nor determine your future; do not dwell your thoughts on yesterday, past life, past failure or past mistakes. Regardless of the kind of failures you have made in the past – relational, financial. Marital, or moral failures, God is saying forget the past. You may have failed so many times and feels God wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore – God is not man. You may like the Israelites, feel you have no future with God; God would not deliver you again!! God may have punished you severally but He’s saying it’s not over. I have plans for your redemption. I am about to do something new for you. But first forget the past (Vs 19). Make a fresh start/beginning again.
Jim Mooney made an acronym for S-T-A-R-T and I love to share it with readers:
S – Stop making excuse;
T – Take an inventory of your (My) life;
A – Act in faith;
R – Refocus your thought, rethink and renew your mind;
T – Trust God and depend in Him to make you succeed
Regardless of your failures in life, you can always start over. God specializes in starting afresh.
Proverbs 24:16 says, “The righteous man fails seven times and can still rise again and keep going.” God punished Israel for their sins and rebellion. Even though they were punished but never forsaken; they thought God would not deliver them again. God used the punishment to rebuke and remind them of what they had done wrong and also give His people hope and encouragement. The punishment served as a deterrent that God does neither tolerate nor condone sin and rebellion but still love and care about them. Our failures are receiving grace from the Lord of the universe. Jesus takes our sins, mistakes, shame and in exchange gives us his lavish love and favor. We can never make up for the imperfection of our past. Jesus gives us not “a second chance” but He became our substitute (2 Cor. 5:21). God knows our countless failure against Him deserved death and emanate within our nature. Jesus gives us his righteous life in exchange for our guilt, shame, sin and rebellion. There is grace for failures in the risen Lord of the universe. We can have a fresh start with new life as we begin this New Year. God is not making you turn a new leaf; He gives you a whole new life. Welcome to your year of uncommon surprises and divine manifestation
Pastor/Evangelist Ogbonnaya, Godswill
P. O. Box 720035, Houston, Texas, 77272 | Tel: 832-881-3929 (Cell) | Email: weefreeministries@yahoo.com | www.weefreeministries.org