New Beginnings

A new year promises new beginnings.

With less than twenty-four hours until a new year rolls around, a lot of people are looking ahead and hoping for better things than they experienced this year. Others are hopeful that the blessings of this year continue into the next.

Maybe an investment portfolio will increase in value.

Perhaps there will be professional advancement.

A new relationship might flourish, there could be opportunities for travel, or it may be that the new year will be the year in which weight is lost or that time is found to spend with family. But it doesn’t take a new year for the greatest “new start” to take place. Every day presents the opportunity to come to Jesus and experience transformation. Paul expressed it like this in Ephesians 4:22–24: “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” In Jesus, every day is a new day. God grants us the opportunity to be “renewed in the spirit of” our minds, putting off what we were and putting on a new self which has been created by God “in righteousness and true holiness.” It is important to notice that God does not say that we are to renew our own minds but that God Himself creates us after His own image.

Surrender to God results in God drawing us deep into His heart and making us new. Many years have gone down in history as being notable.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.

In 1620, the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

The US Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

World War II began in 1939 and ended in 1945.

The year 1969 is remembered as the time that a person first walked on the moon. What will make this next year memorable is that it will be the year in which you are “renewed in the spirit of your mind” again and again.

Every year is a good year when your life is yielded to God.