It's a New Year!

Well, we made it through 2017!  It is now 2018.  A new year!

I think New Year’s Day is my favorite of all the non-religious holidays.  And no, it’s not just because there are a bunch of football games on TV that day.  That doesn’t hurt, of course, but that’s not the reason New Year’s Day is my favorite non-religious holiday.

It seems to me there’s something almost magical about the New Year.  In fact, I even kind of like just writing the date.  1-1-18.  The first day of the first month of the year.  Symbolically, it’s like everything is starting over again.  We know it doesn’t, really—we will all carry baggage from the old year into the new one—but for a little while, it seems that way.  That’s why we make New Year’s Resolutions, after all.  There’s no reason we could not resolve to change our lives on May twenty-fourth or August twelfth.  But symbolically, it just seems right to let January 1—1-1—be the day that we decide things are going to change.

When we hit January 1, we have three hundred sixty-five days of the new year stretching before us.  Anything could happen in those days.  Literally, anything.  You could become famous.  You could become wealthy.  You could make new friends and form new relationships.  All kinds of things could happen to you in the three hundred sixty-five days of the new year.

And that’s true in our journey of faith, too.  Literally anything could happen in those three hundred sixty-five days.  You could introduce someone to Jesus Christ in those three hundred sixty-five days.  You could help someone who’s going through a crisis of faith.  You could be there for someone when they need someone.  Your love of God could become deeper.  Your love of your neighbor could become stronger.  You could do almost anything in the three hundred sixty-five days of the new year.

There’s something else that could happen in those three hundred sixty-five days.  Jesus could come again.  Do you ever think about that?  Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a prediction.  Do I have any reason to think Jesus will come again in 2018?  No.  But I also don’t have any reason to think Jesus won’t come again in 2018.  I have no way to know, one way or the other.  What I do know is what Jesus told us.  Jesus told us to be ready all the time.  Are you?  Am I?

If we’re not, the time to get ready is now.  So let’s make that our New Year’s Resolution:  to be ready for the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Let’s resolve to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Let’s resolve to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Let’s resolve to truly accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior.  Let’s resolve to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.  Let’s resolve that, in 2018, we will truly be deserving of the name “Christian”.

Let’s take advantage of the three hundred sixty-five days that are stretching in front of us.  Let’s make 2018 the year when we do everything we can to live up the name of “children of God.”