I have never been one to get excited about New Year’s Day or getting to the New Year. I have not often stayed up to midnight to bring in the New Year. The most I have ever been excited in my life about the coming of New Year’s Day was when Georgia was playing Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl with the national championship on the line.
Celebrating a New Year never seemed important to me. Perhaps now I look at it as a time for reflection, evaluating my life and making new goals. But the day itself is only important if Georgia is playing. I remember a Family Circus cartoon where the children looked out the window on New Year’s Day and one said, “It looks like the same old year to me.”
That defines how I look at it. Nothing is really new. Problems, debts, and difficulties don’t magically disappear at midnight. The bad habits that I had at 11:59 pm were still there at 12:01 am. On New Year’s Day nothing is really new.
However, there is One who makes all things new. When we come to Jesus as Lord and Savior the Scripture says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2Corinthians 5:17 NASB) We also have the promise that someday all things will be new:
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
(Rev 21:2-5 NASB)
So, this New Year’s Day I want to give thanks that all things are being made new. By the grace of God, those of us who have placed are faith in Jesus Christ and being changed to be like Him in every way. Someday we will have a new earth and a new heaven. Only God can make all things new. Only He will get the glory on that day.
