New Beginnings

 

As we look at how stressful life has become and how perilous the times are, some of us are finding it very challenging to make it through the day. Many of us don’t even want to get out of bed, but we don’t have that option. We have children or elderly parents to take care of, financial obligations to meet, and other personal responsibilities that overwhelm us at times. And on top of those things, some of us are also dealing with our own health issues. “It’s always something!” is a recurring mantra on many of our lips. With everything going on in our lives and with the condition of the world, mental and emotional exhaustion has many in its grip. When all the space in our minds and hearts is consumed with worry and anxiety, it impacts every aspect of our beings, and God doesn’t want this for anyone. We owe it to ourselves to trust that through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, God has given us a better way to approach our lives.

2Corinthians 5:17(NLT) declares, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” Every day presents an opportunity to bask in the newness that Jesus Christ has given us. We have a new chance to put off the old and put on more of the example of Christ so that we can enjoy the privilege and blessings of his love and power. To do this, we must pray and be committed to learn to think, speak, and operate differently than we have in the past.

In John 14:1(NKJV), our blessed Lord wonderfully encourages us. He said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” Jesus Christ knows the interworking of all our hearts. He is intimately acquainted with our secret sorrows, and he knows the wounds that we have suffered through all our lives. He knows the root cause of our struggles, yet he tells us not to be troubled, to not allow our minds to be consumed with thoughts and our hearts consumed with emotions that turn our attention away from him. With crystal clarity, he let it be known that the antidote for a troubled mind and heart is to believe in God and to believe in him.

Pessimism is rampant in our times. People will not allow themselves to trust the Good News of Jesus Christ, and 2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) tells us why. It says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” Some of us have groomed ourselves to only see the dark and negative side of life. Because of this, our thoughts and attitudes have become dark and negative, and this is all we talk about. Why is this so dangerous? It is dangerous because dark and negative thoughts and conversations draw to us the situations, circumstances, and people that keep the darkness and negativity going.

They will not remind us of the new beginning we have in Christ, instead these situations, circumstances, and people will try to keep us trapped in who we used to be before Christ came into our lives. Once our minds and hearts head down the path of living, thinking, and behaving beneath our privilege, the devil will continue to blindfold us to God’s goodness. Heavenly Father commands us in Ephesians 4:23 to change our thoughts so that they line up with the mind of Christ. Our refusal to do this gives the devil permission to keep us blinded to the truth. We become so doubtful of God’s goodness that we won’t give ourselves the gift of trusting in Him. We haven’t taken the time to learn how much He loves us. He loves us infinitely more than we could love ourselves, and He wants us to know this. He wants us to learn about Him so that our confidence and faith in Him grows continually.

Through Christ, we are brought into covenant with God. This is our new beginning! And every day presents a chance to walk in it in a greater way. We are made righteous because of what Jesus Christ accomplished through his sacrifice and resurrection. Before Christ came, we didn’t know the way, and we didn’t have access to it. We were lost in darkness and sin, but because of Christ, all this has changed. Our Redeemer proclaimed in John 14:6(NKJV), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Not only does he want us to know this with every ounce of our being, but he wants us to live this reality every moment of each day. He wants us to know the joy of loving God through him, but many of us are so weighted down by our struggles, fears, and pain that we feel we’ve lost the path to joy, and we don’t believe we can find it. We absolutely can, and it begins with having more faith in the love of God.

Throughout our lives, we’ve learned to mourn, hold grudges, and hold on to regrets, anger, fears, and the sting of disappointment and past mistakes. We’ve learned to never live in the present, but to always stay focused on the past or on the future. This means that our arms are always either reaching back or trying to reach forward, but not reaching up to the Source of our strength, love, and power. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus Christ said no one can serve two masters. To serve is to give attention to, and our Master Jesus is letting us know that we’re not built for duality. We can’t focus on two things at the same time, and this is a tremendous lesson for our faith walk.

Faith demands that our focus and attention is always on God as we follow the example of Christ. Just as we learned to devote our focus on pain, sadness, disappointment, and fear, we must learn to focus our entire being on the joy, victory, peace, and faith of Jesus Christ. By changing our focus, we allow God to wash away the trauma of hurts, anxieties, and insecurities. We must be willing to open the door of new beginnings and to welcome it in our lives. God will not force us to do this, because love never forces its own way. He stands at the door of our hearts knocking, and we must trust that allowing Him to come in is the greatest thing we will ever do for our lives. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

“New Beginnings”, by written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.