New!

Well, it's long standing tradition to write a "New Years" post on these things. I guess I have been avoiding it, because there is so much about this new year that is uncertain for me. I know that I am moving back to Texas in may. And while I am excited about being closer to family and friends in Texas and believe that is where God is guiding my life, I am sad about the many people who are like family that I will be leaving here. Other things are up in the air, like whether I will start grad school immediately in the Fall or wait a year or two and get a job.

But I am not going to dwell on these questions tonight, rather I want to think about this New Year, in the terms of the new beginning we have in Christ. I wish I could say that in the past year, I finally got this life thing perfected, but who would I be fooling? No, more times than I would like to admit, I've found myself frolicking in the pig slop of sin with the prodigal son; at times I have let that Old sinful Adam creep up in my life and turn my heart from the God who formed me and loves me....Oh I wish I could say that this new year, I would put that sin thing behind me for good! Doesn't God say "He who has been Baptized, has died to sin"? Shouldn't sin be over and done with? But no, as long as we live in this fallen broken world we will feebly struggle against the battle of sin in our lives.

Thanks be to God, that He has taken our battle with sin to the cross; where He paid the wages of death on our behalf! Though the battle rages on, the war has been won. He who believes and has been baptized, has indeed been buried with Christ in His death, and has risen to new life in Christ. It's not so much that I celebrate a new year, but daily celebrate the new life, that I have in Christ. That as often as I confess my sins to the Lord, He will look graciously upon me and forgive me my sins. Daily I come to the cross, that symbol of torture and shame, and I make that sign of the cross upon my heart (as was done at my baptism) to remind me that I am one marked as belonging to God; His stamp of life and forgiveness on my heart. Daily I ask God to put to death any sinful desires and to set my heart upon my Savior, to put His sweet praises on my lips, to fill this body of mine with His Spirit that today I might serve Him in faithfulness and love.

No, not a new year so much, as every day a new creation; created in Christ Jesus to do good works. And I pray that through out this year that we have been given, that each of you may be made and remade in Christ's image; that you may know Him, and love Him, and Serve Him; and that in those moments when you are broken by sin, you may stand at the foot of the one who has wiped all that sin away...and you may receive again, anew the blessed Good News that we are God's baptized children; we are children of the Heavenly Father!