Our Father in heaven, holy is your name!

We begin a New Year not enamored with our past accomplishments, but with eyes trained on what is before us. Our future is wrapped up in Jesus’ finished work on the Cross, so there is coming a day when “He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). Victory in Jesus is ours now and forever more!

This world, and its trappings, including time itself, will pass away, and we will both rest and rejoice in your presence singing a new song of Hallelujah’s around your throne. We walk into this New Year with hearts of gladness that our God is the one, true God, and that he is great and worthy of all our praise.

Lord Jesus, may this glorious future secured by your blood mark our everyday existence. May your kingdom come in our hearts now so that your Holy Spirit turns our every affection to you as the things of this earth grow strangely dim.

Let this passion for your glory in all the earth shape even our most inconspicuous habits so that your Word and your Spirit are the primary tutors of our hearts. Let us not give lesser pleasures a greater place in our thoughts, but instead, may our every imagination be held captive to the Word of God.

In this devil’s playground of angst and division, let us, O Lord, live in the Light as we “pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another” (Romans 14:19). In our flesh, we are quick to judge and quick to discard those who wound us, but as children of the Light make us quicker to love, quicker to extend grace, and quicker to forgive.

Fill our minds and our mouths with what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and of the highest moral excellence and greatest praise to our glorious King Jesus. It is these things expressed by the redeemed, Spirit-filled man and woman of God that advance your eternal Kingdom in the hearts of people you came to save.

As we look on our neighbors, in your grace, peel away our biases, crush our prejudices, so that we see first and primarily the Imago Dei, the image of God, that marks every one of us. Every image-bearer is scarred by the Fall and separated from you, but our identity is not in our sinfulness. Brokenness need not destroy us. Instead, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever turns to him in faith moves from certain death to eternal life (John 3:16).

Let this Gospel hope serve as the lens through which we see every person Providence brings into our lives. This testimony of grace moves us to initiate acts of kindness and words of life to our closest friend, fellow believer, as well as to the wayward soul and easily forgotten stranger along the way.

May the riches of your redeeming grace serve as the deepening root of our lives giving us a firm foundation when the winds of doubt and discouragement come as they are sure to come. Let it also be the fragrant aroma flowing from our every breath giving joy to every soul you give to us. The new life in Christ freely given to us exalts new life in Christ as our greatest calling and highest aim for others to enjoy with us. 

So Lord, let us not be bound by what our eyes can see or even by what our minds can dream. Let us not be constrained by what people may expect from us or by what we expect from ourselves. Instead, let us only be bound by the boundless power of God.

Find in me, build in me, by whatever means you see fit, the faith to trust you “to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Make not a reputation for us during these days. Create no memory of our time or accomplishments on this earth except what would bring you “glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever, and ever” (Ephesians 3:21).

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash