Happy New Year! Do you remember all of the fret and worry over Y2K? That New Year was supposed to bring calamity and chaos. Thankfully, that did not manifest and for most people it was a normal transition from one year to another. Just another New Year’s Eve and Day.
For many of us, we view the change of calendars from one year to the next as an opportunity to start over or begin new things. We make resolutions to detail the things we hope to accomplish during the year. Somehow, the “newness” of the year gives us permission to start afresh.
Yet resolutions are often abandoned within a few days or weeks of New Year’s Day. The best of intentions and will power are not enough to help us create something “new” in our lives, or at least change something in our life, like bad habits or our waist line.
Unlike our resolutions, which are based on our action, our strength, our will power, and our resources, which often end in failure, God provides us with “new things” that will never fail. This is because they are dependent upon His grace, His mercy, His wisdom, His love, His strength, His Word, and His Son. Through these, God provides us with a “new heart,” a “new life,” a “new nature,” and through a “new covenant” with Him we become “new people.”
In Ezekiel 36:26 God tells His people He will give them a “new heart.” In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul informs us that “… anyone who belongs to Christ has become a ‘new person.’ The old life is gone; a ‘new life’ has begun!” (2 Cor. 5:17). In his letter to the Ephesians Paul encourages them to “Put on your ‘new nature,’ created to be like God – truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:24). And again in his letter to the Colossians, Paul challenges them to “Put on your ‘new nature,’ and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him” (Colossians 3:10).
During the Last Supper, Jesus told the disciples that the cup of wine “… is the ‘new covenant’ between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you” (Luke 22:20). The “new covenant” is based on Jesus’ sacrifice alone. Our part of this covenant is a gift from God, and it is the most costly gift ever given, one that cost Jesus His very life.
Perhaps you’ve already made your resolutions or even broken some by this point in 2011. But there is still an opportunity to begin anew in and because of Jesus. Ask God to forgive your sins and give you a new life, because of Jesus. Ask God to give you a new heart, because of Jesus. Ask God to help you put on the new nature He alone provides us, because of Jesus. And because Jesus has made all these things possible, ask God to help you to live Each Day with Jesus in 2011.
Your fellow traveler on the journey of faith,
Pastor Tim
