We want to start by wishing you a very happy new year in 2019. Last year may have been a great one for you or it may have been terrible. The good news is that we have opportunity for a brand new fresh start. Many people make new year's resolutions but unfortunately statistics show us that 80% of them have failed by February, only 8% of them succeed one year later and most of those are pretty superficial. This tells us that people want to change but they just don't have the power to do it.
Question: Who then can change?
2 Corinthians 5: 17-21 (KJV)
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Verse 17: The answer is "any man"! And not just change but radically. How? It must be "in Christ". That is the solution. You become a new creature. The old has passed away,
gone forever. Think about that - the new has come.
Verse 18: God has made a way for us to have peace with Him and it is through His Son.
Verse 19 : "not counting our sin against us" - Imagine that! What a message of hope!
Verse 20: Today I am an ambassador for Christ. I spent many years working for the devil, and he is a hard task master. Not Christ though, He says "my yolk is easy, and my burden is light. Come learn of me." But will you today? That is the question between God and you.
Verse 21: Sometimes we can feel that God does not really care about us, and is detached, even. If you ever feel like that, look at the cross of Christ, and all He has done by making a way for us to have peace with God. He takes our sin and we are counted right with God.
What a message of hope for 2019!
May you truly know reconciliation to God.
Much love and every blessing from us all at the Grand Hall Christian Fellowship.