Start a new year …with God!

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world. The celebration of when the year 2024 ends and 2025 begins is later today. There might have been some differences before, especially with the Chinese and Japanese systems (and others) but almost all have been standardized today. Of course, there are hourly differences due to the rotation of the earth which results in the 24-hour time zones. Somewhere in the Pacific, the new year comes first and ends on the same longitude 24 hours after.

The same as the hours of the day, the days, weeks, and months of the year are based on astronomical cycles, the former by the rotation of the earth and the latter by its revolution around the sun. The question is why all these seem to fit together to serve the needs of man. Changing a little in distances, rotation and revolutions would make earth inhabitable to man. Many would simply attribute all these to chance. But to those who believe, these were God-ordained.

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:14-19)

To us, it’s simply changing calendars. But to God, it’s giving us enough time to draw near to him. Sin has separated us from God, and only the sacrificial death of Yeshua has provided us the opportunity to be reconciled with God. He gave us the time and seasons as priceless opportunities to be saved from our sins through Christ. Every year added to our lives is measured in our age, but as to its length we absolutely know not. The years between our birth and death is the God-given window when we can choose to repent and accept salvation through Jesus Christ and be with God for eternity.

I wish everyone a blessed year. And I pray many would find hope and salvation in Jesus in the new year. Always have hope, it is God who gives the bright new year. The Bible says, “If you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.” (Job 11:14-18)