Facing the New Year (2005)

Pastor Booth

We mark time with special days. We just celebrated Christmas and the beginning of the New Year. Such occasions are the cause of reflection on the past as well as anticipation for the future. We remember. We try to foresee. 

We have hope and expectation. We make many New Year’s “resolutions” in hopes of seeing improvement in the coming year. We look for happy events such as births, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, birthdays, vacations, and other happy events. We hope to prosper materially and make plans to pay debts, save money, or make new purchases. We may also have some fear or dread. We wonder what sad events the New Year will hold. Who will get sick, or die? What personal crises we might face? What trials lie ahead that will tempt us to fear and worry.

How do we face the uncertainties of another new year? What motivates us to step into 2005? What keeps us from being paralyzed with the fear of the future? “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). And so we must remember the answer to the question, “What is our only comfort in life and death?

 “That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.”

[New Year]