New Year Resolution

Dear Creator Family,

I pray that as you said goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025, you were filled with a sense of God’s presence with you and that God’s joy filled your heart. The new year brings new peace, in the act of letting go of hard feelings and frustrations from the past year. The offer of 2025’s new beginnings is the opportunity to say “sorry” and extend forgiveness to others. 2025 is a reminder that God loves us and wants the best for us. This year is our year for God!

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Of course, we don't need a new year to recognize God’s love for us or Jesus’ sacrifice or the Holy Spirit’s indwelling power, we can become a new creation at any moment. 2025 is the clean slate that can help us over that last hump through which all things would be made new! 

As we embrace the New Year, we look ahead with hope and trust in God. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, "for I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." No matter what your earthly goals are at the beginning of this new year —more physical strength, emotional health, or financial stability— Emmanuel is with us, helping you to achieve the goals to further God's plan for your life!

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul."  How can we renew our souls for Christ other than by turning to God in all things, finding Christ with us  and seeing the Holy Spirit everywhere. 

Candace Cameron Bure, actress and talk show host, has sought to live for God throughout her career. I find her perspective illuminating for the year ahead: “My faith is just my life, it’s a part of it. It naturally flows from me and I feel like I’ve navigated my entire career differently than most people have. The goal for me isn’t necessarily the next project or making more money or being a bigger star. I’ve always chosen the things that are true to me and that I’ve wanted to do.”  The roles she has chosen and the personality she reflects on air incorporate her beliefs into everything she does, and it shows.

Facing the aggressive competition of professional basketball, Magic Johnson credits God with his success and his outlook on life: "Through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus and I learned to trust in God!"  Jonathan Edwards revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian, offers these two simple resolutions for the new year, Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. 

I pray that you will find today the template of love in the presence of Christ and that each day will be just the same.

Praying for you all for a Holy New Year!

​Fr. Bill+