Will it really be a Happy New Year?

• Happy? New?

The ritual of bringing in the New Year certainly is neither.
Parties, fun, games, hooting and hollering at midnight,
and horrible hangovers on New Year’s Day
have been going on since the calendar was invented.

We say, “Happy New Year,”
but past experience indicates otherwise.
The prevailing mood is invariably pessimistic.
Even life itself appears old and decaying—
ready to crumble at any moment.

• Future?

Almost 2000 years ago,
God said through the apostle John:

“Behold, I make all things new”
(Revelation 21:5)

A careful study of the book of Revelation,
where this expression is found,
discloses some of the “new” things that God will make in the near future:

A new type of earth
where bloodshed, crime and selfishness will be extinct
A new relationship between men
based upon divine love
A new universal attitude toward God
resulting in sincere worship of Him

• Now?

“That may be true about the future,”
chirps the now generation,
“but what about the here and now?”

Here also, God is the source of all that can truly be called new.

Consider some of the new things He gives to those who receive His Son
Christ Jesus as their Savior and Lord:

• A New Song

The writer of Psalm 40 describes how God lifted him
from a horrible pit of miry clay,
how He set his feet upon a rock
and put a new song in his mouth.

This new song is not limited to the psalmist alone.
Everyday people like you and me are learning
to sing this new song today!

• A New Spirit

Ezekiel, in chapter 36, says this new spirit results from
God’s forgiveness and cleansing.

It changes a person’s entire attitude and outlook.
Love, joy and peace become the dominant characteristics
of one who has received a new spirit from God.

• A New Sense Of Direction

When two brothers, Andrew and Peter, met Jesus Christ,
the whole course of their lives was changed
because they began to follow Him (Matthew 4:18–20).

These two obscure fishermen
were among the small band of dedicated men
who shook the mighty Roman Empire to its very foundation,
and pointed multitudes to Christ as the only Savior of sinners.