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Happy New Year!  This phrase has been on our lips for the past few days.  We will continue to say it for a few more and then it will slowly fade away.  It seems to me a little sad that the celebration of the “new” is so short-lived. I happen to like new.  I like new shoes and new clothes and a new coffee maker and new paintings!  The problem with the new things is that sooner or later, they become old and worn.  Then I find myself not liking them so much.  Now that is not true in every case. I had an old bathrobe that I loved and wore way past its prime.  I knew that no new robe was going to be as comfortable.  But eventually it became as transient as all the other new things.  It was so worn, I couldn’t even donate it, it had to go in the trash.  It was a sad day.

Our God is all about the new.  But God’s “new” is completely different than my new coffee maker or new robe!  God’s “new” has an eternal quality.  His “new” doesn’t wear out or have a limited lifetime.  Lamentations 3: 22-23 tells us that His love and compassion for us is new every morning.  He has new expressions of His faithfulness available every day.  He knows that we need new reminders of the eternity of His love as we tend to be forgetful people when it comes to the things of God!  Isaiah 42: 9-10 says, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare before they spring into being, I announce them to you.”

God’s love manifests itself in the new.   In Isaiah 43:19 He says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  His “new thing” is His most eternal and enduring expression of His love – His new covenant with us in Christ Jesus.   In Christ, God provided a new and eternal way for us to know and love Him more intimately, new opportunities to experience His love and share it with others, new ways to experience His grace, joy, and peace.

He offers us a new life that transcends the decay and transient nature of this world. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  Although we will all leave this earthly home, we have a new, eternal home waiting for us.  “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”  2 Corinthians 5:1.

The book of Revelations reveals even more about God’s plans for newness. In Chapter 21 we learn, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” and that He will create a new heaven and a new earth and that this old and broken world will pass away.

It seems that we should celebrate God’s “new” every day of our lives!  Our new life in Christ, the new glimpses of His compassion, love and grace that He shows us each day, our new home in heaven and ultimately, His new earth and heaven are all cause for celebration.   Why not make each day of 2019 an opportunity to celebrate all the ways that God has blessed us with His provision of eternal newness with Him?  Let’s make it happen!

Happy New Year in Him! [jetpack_subscription_form]