We have enjoyed beautiful celebrations of Christ together during these HolyDays of December. Now, still in the glow of Christmas, we pray for our New Year. The final hymn we’ll sing together on December 31st is the much loved anthem of faith in the victory of Christ’s death and resurrection: “Because He Lives.”
Because He lives I can face tomorrow, Because He lives all fear is gone, Because I know He holds the future, And life is worth the living just because He lives.
It’s so hard to imagine the future, because experience teaches us that surprises, good and bad, will come amid the best of our plans and intentions. As your circumstances, expectations, and worries stir up feelings of excitement or dread, lift them up in prayer this week to our faithful, gracious, almighty, and merciful God. Gather at Zion or pull your family and friends around our livestream at home to mark the New Year with faith, prayer, and praise.
As you consider your life and plans in this new year, don’t neglect to pray for God’s guidance, perspective, and peace. His death for you and victorious resurrection means you CAN and will face tomorrow with His victory guiding and sustaining you. Scripture tells us, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Co 5:17)” God says, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Rom 12:2)” Also, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life… to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God (Eph 4:22-24).” It is always encouraging to remember that God says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10).”
Rejoice this New Year to REST in His grace, to DISCOVER more and more about God’s will and His mercy, and to LOVE Him and the people He loves in all the expected and surprising ways 2022 will bring us.
in Christ’s peace,
Pastor Stephen
