New Year- New Life

One of the things that I enjoy about the start of a new year is that at least for a little while people are filled with optimism and hope. The new year finds us thinking about the possibility for things to be new, to be fresh, to be restored. The new year begins and we are hopeful that this year things might be different, that this year things can be different. Some will make resolutions to help them strive toward a goal that they will set. Some will take on new habits while others will try to break old ones. The new year offers up the opportunity to drive a stake in the ground and say"this year things are going to be different." "I am going to be a better me." "I am going to get in better shape." "I am going to do good things more and bad things less."

The new year offers us the opportunity to at least for a little while dream that things can be made new. That we can have a new beginning. A new start. Usually though, by mid January, if we are honest, the hope and the optimism of the new year fades. Resolutions are broken. We fall back into the same routines and we live life in the same ruts. Optimism turns into what we will call realism to justify no change and our dreams and hopes of things being made new are forgotten. We just settle for things as they are. This year my prayer is that we don't settle for anything less than what is promised to us by God.

You see the promise of the bible is that we can live a new life. That all things can be made new. You and me can be made new in Christ. God wants each of us to have life and have it to the full. God wants us to have hope and optimism and to be better people. And God will make it possible for us to have a new beginning, a fresh start, a new life. Each and every day. Because that is what God does. We read in Romans chapter 6, "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 2 Corinthians 5:17 say, "Anyone who is in Christ they are a new creation the old is gone and the new life comes." Jesus in Revelation 21:5 says," I am making everything new." You see we are not stuck in the ruts that we find ourselves in. We have a way out. Our past and our present circumstances do not define who we are we and can have a fresh start and new beginning through Christ who is in the business of new life. You see God truly wants each of us to life lives of hope and optimism lives that are being renewed every morning. Lives that are being transformed and changed by him.

If we want things to be different, we might have to do things differently, we might have to stop trying to change our lives on our own by making resolutions and instead trust God to do what God says he will do. Trust God this year with our hopes, our dreams, our insecurities, our fears, and our habits. Trust God with our lives. As this New Year begins I want you know that God has plan for your life a plan to prosper you and not to harm you to give you a hope and a future. God wants to make all things new for you. Trust God for a new beginning this year.

Love today.

In Christ's love and mine,

Doug