As we start a new year 2021 I would like to remind you that God never changes and we can trust Him in spite of what we naturally see. At the beginning of 2020 last year I shared a message entitled “The Future is Different - See I am doing a New Thing”. The passage of scripture that we looked at was Isaiah 43:16-21.
Here is an extract from the message that I shared in 2020:
I believe this is the scripture that God has given for the church the beginning of 2020.
The beginning of a new decade.
Isaiah 43:18-19
18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Will God go against His word? No.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Is God faithful? Yes. But in order for us to exercise faith in and through our lives we have to live by faith.
2 Corinthians 5:7
7 For we live by faith, not by sight.
If our life was predictable, we would not need faith and without faith, we cannot please God.
Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
In the reading the context declares the existence of God before the creation. God did not derive his existence from anyone else. God is more powerful than anything else in existence, He part seas and brought armies to nothing. He is our redeemer and saviour and He fulfils what He promises. He freed the people of Israel from both Egypt and slavery.
God reminds them of what He has done, showing how powerful and able He is. Then it says not to remember them as to not just look back and say “the good old days”, that was then!
Really the looking back at what God has done in our lives should be and this scripture encourages us to use those happenings as the encouragement to apply faith to the here and now and our futures.
The next part of the scripture asks us to see a new thing, something fresh.
Don’t you see it? - We need to look and expect and make plans just like we do in pregnancy!
Making a way - Jesus is the way, the road, the path, the direction, our course of life.
Streams in the wilderness - Jesus is the living water, the river and the stream in the wasteland.
Lets take these words to heart “Do not remember…” Instead lets look around so we do not miss what God is doing now. Let what we have experienced be our encouragement for the future.
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That was the message at the beginning of a year, like none other that any of us had experienced.
We also took a song as encouragement “Waymaker”
“You are Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper Light in the darkness My God, that is who You are”
“Even when I don't see it, You're working Even when I don't feel it, You're working You never stop, You never stop working You never stop, You never stop working"
At the beginning of this year I believe our scripture to take us forward is:
Revelations 3:14-22
“What do you trust in?”
Revelation 3:17-18
17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
The Church in Laodicea thought they were rich and not in need of anything. They trusted in their own ability.
We may think we are ok and we have everything together but as we start a New Year together let’s really search ourselves and turn to God to provide everything we need.
-Blog by Darren Butkus
Well done Darren and luke