As we come to face the new year, many are looking back - chronicling the events of the year past. But for followers of Christ, looking back is only profitable when it produces something positive toward the year ahead. Father God isn't a backward looking Lord, but a positive and forward looking God of hope, newness and creativity.
Memory Lane might be a preoccupation for some, but disciples of Christ have the best reasons to avoid that detour and stay focused on the road ahead. Those reasons are at least as numerous as all of God's promises. Life in the world has its troubles and its difficulties and regardless of what might be said by some, Jesus never promised that we'd have everything we wanted or that life would be easy. Anyone promoting anything to the contrary should be checked against the reality of scripture and they might be someone to avoid.
John 16:33 (NLT) "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
As followers of Christ we'll encounter hills and valleys, heights of joy and the solitude of desolate places, but we're never alone regardless of how we might feel. Everything we encounter while walking through this life has an opportunity to profit us spiritually and that's most important. We might see that benefit of those things if we're willing to look for them through Father God's eyes rather than those of someone connected to worldly gain. It's those things that have the potential to yield eternal profit for us - the real and lasting gain for our benefit, not the temporary worldly gain that has His fatherly attention in priority. We're not here for our comfort, but instead having been redeemed, we're now being refined by the Holy Spirit within us - no longer tied to the values and desires of a perishing world, but focused on the values and desires of the Holy God we will come face to face with throughout eternity on the unending and glorious road ahead.
What we focus on while we journey through this temporary life has an effect on both our current and future hope. While this past year may have brought both sufferings and/or joys, nothing can compare with what we journey toward as God's children. Nothing outshines or outlasts the promises of our God that reign over our days in the year ahead as we submit to him... and nothing can diminish the tremendous value that He's placed on us or change who He's called us to be.
1 Peter 2- 9-10 "But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 10“Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy. 11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls."
In the year ahead - looking forward, our hope, our opportunities for joy and the wealth of all that's contained within the true promises of God are all before us. The past may have held blessings and true profit worthy of carrying forward and we have reason to continue to offer gratitude for those and for corrections and refining trials that profited us also. We have no less reason to be grateful for the tough times - the molding and shaping of our character by the Master's hand may be uncomfortable at times, but the end result has the potential to leave us looking a little more like Jesus. For us His children, it's the year ahead and future with Him that holds the greatest wonder that we seek. It's what we were created for and it lies ahead, not behind.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NLT) 11"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me."
The year past doesn't dictate what our future holds for us. Our focus in the year ahead will largely determine the value we receive in it and continually focusing on our walk with Christ will find us contentedly blessed throughout the year. Opportunities for growth will confront us once again, but as we go forward in submission to our doting Father, we'll have nothing but real and lasting profit to look forward to. As His children we have reasons to be excited for what lies ahead - reasons as numerous as our Father's promises while we focus on Him and let the past rest quietly behind us. Whatever the past may have held, whether triumphs or failures, His mercies are new for us every day, so every day we have new opportunity to start again and find ourselves ever more deeply in love with the person of Christ Jesus. So the new year's already looking bright!
Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT)
22 "The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. 24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
We know this world's corrupted and not headed in the right direction. Following it's values and customs will only leave us corrupted and heading that way also. So keeping our focus where it belongs in the new year is going to be our most important task - and not always an easy one. Going forward into the new year there's some advice that our brother, the Apostle Paul offered that's well suited for our profit in the year ahead and worth remembering...
2 Corinthians 6:14 - 2 Corinthians 7:1 (NLT)
14 "Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? 15 What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? 16 And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.17 Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the LORD. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you. 18 And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.”
1 "Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God."
I pray that the new year's focus is with the greatest priority on our true relationship with the precious person of Christ - that becoming more like Him and becoming one with Him every day, one day at a time, all year long - becomes our resolution in everything we encounter.
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