“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18 – 19a)
As a child, I remember vividly the symbols of the old and the new year. The old year was symbolized by an old man with a beard, and the new year as a baby. Of course, the idea was the dying away of all the things which took place the previous year and the looking forward to the new year with all of its potential and expectations.
As we move from 2024 into 2025, it would be good for us to review our lives to see where our they came up short of what we had planned at the end of 2023. Some of you might be like I was at one time in my life. I would just go with the flow. However, even Jesus Himself was on a time schedule. It is quite obvious that He was to be in Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover during His last year of physical life, but He didn’t let his time schedule hinder him from changing his daily schedule. When He said, ” It is finished”, it was . There was nothing that Jesus left undone. He had healed thousands. He had resurrected from the dead dozens. He had given sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Plus, he called and discipled 12 men to carry on His ministry after His death and resurrection. Nothing was left to chance!
How about you? Are you ready to go forward from 2024 to 2025? Or are you stuck in 2024, 2020, 2000, or farther back? Are you saying, “I wish I could go back to…?” Many of us as believers wish for the “glory days” or “better days”, but we must not have this attitude. The Lord has given us one day to live at a time. Every day is the opportunity to live and serve Him.
Our biblical passage from Isaiah is very clear that we should not remember nor consider the things of old. Yet, we get stuck in the past. Does this mean that thinking on the past is bad? NO, but living in the past is. God through Jesus was about to do a new thing. Okay, it took 700 years, but it would and did happen with the birth, life, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, God accomplished what He set out to do.
Again, I ask you, “Are you ready to go forward with a new thing? Or are you going to live in the past wishing for the glory or better days to return?” I hate to burst your bubble, but they will NOT return. Christ has made us to be people of the present and the future. May we live that way in 2025…reflecting Him as we fulfill His will in the world!
Happy New Year!
Bro. Lyle