Every year around this time two activities are normally forefront in our minds: Christmas and New Year’s Day. I vividly remember as a child saying “Christmas or New Years is around Mr. Bertrum Corner”, a curb in Bimini about two minutes walk from my home. This popular saying was an indication that these two-yearly events, which are imminent, were indeed fast approaching.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)
As we are going about our daily routine it is evident that the Christmas Season has arrived and shortly afterwards the New Year will “roll in”. The Year 2020 was so tragic for multitudes, as a result of the adverse effects of the pandemic that we are all looking forward with keen anticipation to 2021. God in His infinite mercy has ordained that we have a mindset that each New Year will deliver an opportunity for us to declare farewell to the Old Year, with its troubles and trials, and welcome the New Year with its “New Beginnings” of blessings and benefits.
Isaiah 21:11-12 (NKJV)
11… “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”
12 The watchman said, “The morning comes…
In a traditional Watch Night Service on New Year’s Eve these words proclaimed have such powerful significance. In this instance the “night” 2020, a year of tremendous adversities, is rapidly passing away and “Praise the Lord”, will be no more. The “morning” 2021, a “New Beginning” of great expectations comes, and Glory Hallelujah it is currently “right at the door”.
Simultaneously, let’s be watchful and ready for another imminent activity, the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is also “right at the door.”
1 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.
Matthew 24: 1, 33 (NIV)
My Prayer for us, as we prepare for Christmas and New Year’s Day, is that we will all be ready for His return, and what a glorious “New Beginning” that will surely be.
Indeed we must be ready to meet the Lord Jesus Christ or we’ll be in an everlasting crisis. This would be much worse than 2020 and the pandemic which played out as a nightmare to many of us. Definitely, we need to either enter a new beginning in Christ or be rededicate to Christ renewing a personal walk with the Lord.