What would make this coming year be the best ever for you? There are lots of possibilities. A win on the lottery, or some other unexpected windfall, would be many people’s choice. Others would settle for just an increase in their income that will save them from anxiety and fear of the future. To see their children prosper and maybe succeed in their studies so that they were set up for a good career would also please many people. Those with sick relatives, and especially parents with sick children, would give anything to see a complete recovery and restoration to full health. Each of us would have our own specific desire and at the beginning of a year we hope that somehow it might happen.
On the wider scene we hope for an improvement for the Economy. Too many people are out of work, especially young people, and we all wish for the financial uncertainty to end. There are many other problems in our society that we would want to be changed. Then there are those issues of terrorism, the war in Afghanistan and the other conflicts around the globe. Many people would also wish to see Governments being bold and reaching agreement about carbon emissions. If we had a magic wand or some special powers then we would put everything to rights.
But then we know that the chances of our desires and longings coming to pass are small. It is really just a vain hope. Sometimes really good and unexpected things do happen to people but we cannot rely on it in any way. Most of the time life doesn’t work like that. So we approach a New Year with our hopes and wishes, we make our resolutions for how we want to live, but in it all we expect things will largely stay the same as they were last year.
We might dream, but how often do dreams come true? We just have to face the fact that this world is full of problems that mankind has created for itself. In the same way there are parts of our lives and how they will work out over which we have little or no control. So we must resign ourselves to making the best of things and trying our hardest to be better people.
Things can be different. For generations people have faced the same dilemmas that we have thought about so we are not facing something new. But in this situation there has sounded out a message of true hope: Not wishful thinking but a real and reliable expectation of something good. Christians have found hope for themselves and their families, and hope for this sad world. That hope is in Jesus. He can deal with our deepest personal needs and He can change us.
Let me tell a story to show what I am saying. A little boy was given a jigsaw of a map of the world for Christmas. It was quite difficult and he really struggled to do it. Then his Dad came to help him. He turned the pieces over and on the back was the picture of a man. They soon did that and then found the map of the world was also correct. It’s an old saying, “get the man right and you will get the world right.” The need for this world is changed people. You and I need to be changed so that we might start to become the sort of people God designed us to be.
It was for this reason that Jesus came into the world - which is what we have just celebrated at Christmas. He came to deal with that sin which is in our hearts. The fact that we do not love God and do what He desires us to do is the evidence that we are sinners. By His death and resurrection Jesus has provided an answer to our sin. God is what really matters in life.
The good news is that if you will honestly acknowledge your sin and your need to be different, and if you will trust in Jesus and His death on the cross, He will forgive you. When we trust in Jesus He starts the work of making us different.
Jesus brings peace of heart and mind to us because our sins are forgiven and we are right with God. He makes us different people and gives a new hopes and desires, and He satisfies all our hopes. He helps us to learn to think differently about God and life. In this way we know a new joy and love because we know Jesus.
As you go into a New Year why not begin to think about Jesus?
What I have said is not fantasy or wishful thinking. It is the real
experience of millions of Christians around the world. But more than
that it is what Jesus has promised in the Bible, and when we believe
what He has said we find He keeps His promises.