Greetings from the Pastor’s Study. One of the characteristics of our Christian faith that I appreciate so much is the promise of new beginnings. Time and time again throughout the Old Testament we read about God renewing His covenant with the children of Israel. The story seems to be a familiar one in which the Israelites wander away from their relationship with God and begin to chase after the various pagan deities that
are worshiped by people in the surrounding regions. God resents this adulterous relationship that His people are engaged in and begins to bring hardship and difficulties to the Israelites to make them wake up and realize what they have abandoned and at what cost. Eventually they get the message, repent of their sin and begin to start all over again in their relationship with God. As you read through the Old Testament this seems to be one of the consistent themes throughout.
Now perhaps you think that you and I are more sophisticated and more spiritual than the people that lived in Old Testament times and that we would never do anything like that. Our love for God and our commitment to Him never wavers. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the benefit of 2000 years of Christian heritage. But alas, some argue today that America has become a post-Christian nation. And what are we as a nation but the sum total of the individual in this nation. Our national witness, or lack thereof, is simply a reflection of the spiritual condition of the people in the nation.
Robert Robinson, a Methodist preacher, captured this thought in the hymn he wrote in 1757 entitled, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I¹m fixed upon it, Mount of Thy redeeming love. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.
Take my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for thy courts above.
Note especially the next to last line of the hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” Rev. Robinson sensed this same tendency in the human heart to “wander from the Lord.”
Perhaps you have felt the same way some time last year and you are wondering, “How many times can I go back to God? How many times will He take me back?” Well the good news is that our God is a God of new
beginnings. This does not give us a license to sin. But be assured that it is more to Him that you get back in
right relationship with Him if you are not already. And what better time to get back where you know you belong than right now at the start of the year?
God bless you this wonderful time of the year — a time of new beginnings. And I pray that you and your family will have a happy and blessed New Year.
See you in church.
Pastor Jim
