A New Thing

A New Thing

As we meet here tonight, 2012 is now a closed chapter in each of our lives.  We now have opened a brand new chapter in our lives filled with blank pages just waiting to be written.  Although, we’re each full aware that we don’t have complete control over each line that will be written, we do have control over many of the choices that will be made as well as our responses to life’s many turns and unexpected twists that come our way.
With God’s direction and strength, this year can be far better and greater than last year or any year previous in our lives.  Just as God’s mercies are new each morning, before us is an entire new year that can be filled with experiences and displays of God’s power and goodness!  We have the opportunity to start fresh and begin anew!
Isaiah 43:18-21
18 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 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.
20 The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
21     the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.
I believe firmly that God is doing a new thing this year!  I believe that as we put Him first in our lives and forget our former way of doing things, that He is going to begin to pave new paths before us that we never dreamed possible!
These new paths may be made in relationships, business opportunities, or other things that we now consider to be a wasteland; a desert place.  However, just as we may work hard for years trying to clear brush from a land in the natural, we know that God can completely clear it in an instant.  We see evidence of this with tornadoes in the natural world.  I believe that God is looking to do this same thing with situations from our past; to pave a new path and give us a new perspective of them.  Many of these new things are going to come from things that we have long forsaken and abandoned.  However, because God forges them and we do not, He alone will get all of the praise, honor, and glory that comes as we walk down these new paths.
He may not reveal to us the end destination, but He’ll show us enough to keep following Him on these new adventures.  Sort of like pioneers on the Oregon Trail, great adventures lay before us.  These paths may even come during our everyday routines, however, as we dedicate them to Him, He is able to give us a new perspective and remove stumbling blocks that we may have put up because of how we see things and do great things through it!
These paths will transform our ordinary and common lives to be witnesses for all to see that He alone is God.  I believe that God, through us, is going to reveal Himself to many in new and creative ways, and proclaim that He alone is the savior and that His salvation is available for everyone.
This year will be one where cycles of sin and addictions are broken.  This will be a year where old ruts, routines, and lifestyles are broken free from as we move down this new wilderness path into the new thing that God has planned for us; a better thing!  It’s bound to be an adventure that we will never forget nor the generations to follow us!