Have you thought much about the New Year beginning? I don’t know how you feel about near year’s resolutions. Personally, I have never been very effective in making or keeping them. However, I do like to think of the beginning of another year as a time of reflection and planning, especially concerning spiritual things. It is a time to reflect back on the previous year, the accomplishments as well as shortcomings we experienced. Then we can look forward praying and hoping for new and additional accomplishment opportunities and to be able to overcome things we have fallen short of in the past. If you are lost, 2012 would be a great year to get saved, actually today would be a great day to get saved. If the Lord is dealing with you, PLEASE PRAY to be saved! If the Lord is not dealing with you, PLEASE PRAY for Him to deal with and draw you so you can be saved! For those of us that are saved, are we serving the Lord and growing in His will as He desires for us to? As individuals and as a church it is beneficial for us to reflect on past experiences to learn and grow. But it is more important for us to pray and to seek and follow God’s leadership to perform and accomplish things in His service that will please Him and bring honor and glory to His name. The following is the concluding paragraph from the Missionary Baptist Literature Adult Sunday School Quarterly from the January 1, 2012 lesson titled “Looking Forward” written by Bob K. Vanderpool.
“Are the ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ meaningful or merely traditional? It is a personal question to answer. God has allotted us this time to accomplish that which He has set forth in His commands that we should follow. Our time is priceless. We are told in Revelation 1:3, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” John 9:4 states, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” As is often said, we will not pass this way again. What we do now, not later, is of the utmost importance. We cannot redo what is done. We do not know how much time we have for the future. Therefore, let us serve Him now.”
Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” May it be our prayer, desire and effort to press toward this mark as we begin this new year!
Brother Mitch Glasscock