From End

To Beginning

On this most blessed and favoured Lord’s Day Sunday, we cannot but acknowledge that we are on the final step of a year whose hours are dying for some and have already struck midnight for others. Today is Old Year’s Day. Today, Sunday, is the beginning of a week and end of three hundred and sixty-fifth day of an Old Year. Indeed this is a most blessed and favoured Lord’s Day, which God has allowed us to see and know. It is His favoured and honoured gift to us all, even in this dying time of 2023.

God, who is Omniscient, knows that many of us have come to this ending time with mixed feelings, unresolved emotions, shaky hopes, and unspoken fears. These have been occasioned by the closing of the year that seems to have come too soon; a year of unfulfilled dreams; a year that has come to an end, leaving too many things incomplete. Issues have remained unresolved and many promised projects have not been started. A measure of anxiety holds sway, for the hours of this dying year will not be stayed, as it will not wait for you, or anyone.

However, regardless of whether the clock strikes fifty more hours to go, or five more hours to go, before the Old Year dies, in this precious, divine moment, God has given us all an opportunity to receive unconditional freedom and unfailing grace, to know change and boldness to face the coming New Year in His assured pardon, forgiveness, mercy and truth.

Yes, today is Old Year’s Day. Regardless of who you are, today is the day when the fading old year dies and is buried. Today is the last for the season of 2023. Today is a last for many things. I draw your attention to three last actions, in thought, word and deed.

Thought – Today is the last day for you to fulfill all that you have thought and purposed to do in 2023. If my thought was to give up something or take up something, today is the last to accomplish it.

Word – Today is the last day for being faithful to and fulfilling the word you have spoken in promise in 2023. If your word of promise has been given for 2023 and you have not fulfilled that word, today is the last to honour your word to whomsoever.

Deed – Today is the last day for you to write the date 2023, for after today there is a change of date.

As I stand pondering from my place of view, as I look back on my life through the entire year that is passing, what questions am I posing? What questions are you asking? I don’t know about you, but I know that I am hushed in humble, reverent, silence, when I have no choice but to admit these facts.

In all my unworthiness, the Sovereign Lord has granted me grace and favour, to live through a whole year of 365 days.
In all my unfaithfulness, the Almighty Lord, in His mercy and grace, has been faithful to keep me, without fail, through every hour of those 52 weeks of the year.
In all my undeserving, the Great, One True, I AM, has offered me forgiveness, pardon, grace and mercy, through the 8760 hours of the year.

Is this not true of you also?

Let us keep looking at the God of the passing season, assured that He, who has brought us to this hour, is the same God who brings us to the new season of 2024, and its coming hours. Let’s continue in God’s Grace tomorrow, the 1st day of the New Year, as God wills.