NEW BEGINNINGS
01st Jan 2025
A Happy New Year to you all! We pray that the coming year will be full of God’s goodness and blessing.
When thinking about the past year and looking forward to the year ahead, we can be filled with all kinds of emotions and reactions.
As I was mulling this over, a song came strongly to me -
“I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart,
I will enter His courts with praise.
I will say, This is the day (year) that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice for He has made me glad.
He has made me glad, He has made me glad.
I will rejoice for He has made me glad.”
As we walk away from another year, thanksgiving is very important. We can often get occupied with things that have not gone well, when to concentrate on thanksgiving opens the door for more blessings to flow into our lives.
Psalm 50:23 says, “He who sacrifices thank offerings honours me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.”
The enemy of our souls would like to keep reminding us of our failures, but the great thing about God is that he does not remember our sins and failures. Hebrews 8:12 says, “For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
God wants to fill our year with peace, forgiveness and hope. When we speak about past failure, He says, “I can’t remember that, I have forgiven and forgotten it!”
So as we look forward into 2025 let us remind ourselves of the prophetic words spoken by Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
God is the Great Redeemer, who will take us as we are, and give us new beginnings.
by Charles Sibthorpe
