LIVING FOR THE GLORY OF GOD – New Year Resolutions

 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." (Deuteronomy 6:5 )

The New Year is the day that marks the end of one year and the beginning of the next year and is the day on which the year count is incremented. The Bible does not speak for or against the concept of New Year’s resolutions. One of the traditions associated with New Year’s observances is the making of resolutions, promises to stop or start something in the New Year. 

Now not to forget the recent phenomenon of the coronavirus pandemic. Never did the world imagine that a disease could engulf the entire globe in this manner. Where did it all begin, the scientists of the world still seem to have no definite answer. But there are lingering doubts that it could have been the result of a failed experiment in a lab in China, specifically Wuhan, from where it all began. If this is true, this would be another costly mistake of man’s innovation. This explains why the Psalmist says in Psalm 24:1 that “the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” God loves both man and His creation. For this reason, when God was brought a great flood, he directed Noah to build an Ark and in it, preserved a pair of each living animal, birds, reptiles. This is the perfect model of sustenance of nature that God desires from Man.

One who gives life even sustains it. As we read in the book of Job 12: 7-10 where God says, “Ask the beasts, they will teach you; the birds of the heavens they will tell you; the bushes of the earth they will teach you; the fish of the sea they will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hands is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

If this is what God expects of us, man is certainly not obeying the Creator and as Christians, we are not fulfilling our Christian duty to preserve and sustain nature. We ought to keep in mind what was said by St John in Revelation 11: 18 where the servants of the Lord who obeyed God's commands will be rewarded while those who destroyed the earth will be punished.
It's that time of year when everyone makes ‘New Year's Resolutions’ – things that you and I plan to do to make next year better than last. In reality, there is only one resolution that any of us needs to make in order to cause all of the other things we desire to fall into place. What is that resolution? It's stated perfectly in Deuteronomy 6: 5: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." If you love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength, you will put Him first in all things, "...and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matt. 6: 33).

 "...Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Forget the ills and wrongs of yesterday. If you remember them at all, remember them as lessons you learned in the process of moving toward your ultimate goal – becoming more like Jesus. Hold nothing in your heart or memory that will be a stumbling block to your walk with Him. Many things I have tried to grasp, and have lost. That which I have placed in God's hands I still have.
A little boy asked his father for assistance in repairing his broken wagon. When the job was done, the boy looked up and said, "Daddy, when I try to do things by myself, they go wrong. But when you and I work together, they turn out just fine." Let us work together, hand in hand with our Heavenly Father. “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” Ps. 37: 5-6

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Cor. 5: 17. Keep the smile, leave the tears. Think of joy, forget the fear. Hold the laughter, leave the pain and be joyous. 

As the New Year begins let us pray that it will be a year with peace, happiness, and abundance of new relations.

May God Bless us all

Your Shepherd in Our Lord

Saji Achen, Vicar