The Love That Holds Our Year Together
Thursday December 31, 2015
As we come to the end of this year, a year filled with both accomplishments and failures, perhaps it’s time to reflect on the past year. Looking back over the past year and evaluating its events may bring joy in some things done well and some positive steps forward in our journey. However, there may be an overwhelming sense of our lives being only “a drop in the bucket” of influence in a sea of challenges and struggles that surround us in our world today.
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:5-8 NKJV)
At the end of each year we are reminded that the God of time and eternity has, for centuries, looked on human struggle and growth, accomplishments and failures. He’s heard us make promises to Him and then turn away from them when times get tough. He’s observed many of us taking back control of our lives and making choices that He knows will lead to more pain and heartbreak because we won’t listen to Him.
The thing that gives us hope on this New Year’s Eve is – God still offers us His love and forgiveness. Jesus died on the cross once and for all time, once and for all sin. Today, God is willing to lavish His love on us, provided we are ready to turn to Him and rely on the gift of life Jesus purchased for us through His life, death and resurrection.
Eternal life is available to everyone who wants it because we are still living in the time of God’s redeeming grace. No matter what people around us may do, or what government decisions get made, or who in our family or circle of friends make good or bad choices, God is still sovereign over all. God has planted eternity in each of our hearts. He is ready and willing to fill us with what we need to have a purposeful future here on earth. Then, upon our earthly death, He will take us to a glorious eternity with Him forever in heaven. Believers in Jesus can confidently put their hand into His and enter the unknown year 2016, and every year following, with the full assurance that He will lead us in the way we are to go.
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)
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