Dear Precious Friends,
As we embrace the gift of this day and the hope we have in our Lord, we welcome this day with the joy of the Lord no matter what we are walking through. May we prepare to walk in the New Year with a passion to put God first in everything we are and in every part of our lives.
Regardless of where we are right now or what we have done up to this point, the Bible says that God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23). God wants to give us a fresh start. His intention is never to hold our past over you and beat us up with regret. He offers a new future instead, leveraging the grace that we are receiving for His glory.
David, Israel’s greatest king, was labeled “a man after God’s own heart” and yet, we see his actions weren’t always in line with that title. However, we get insight into his sensitive heart while reading his confessional found in Psalm 51.
Psalm 51:10-12 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” Here in Psalm 51 David exemplifies the heart of one who seeks transformation. He models for us a posture of humility that will lead to powerful encounters with God’s transformative love. He doesn’t sit back and merely live with that which plagues him but goes to God with his problems that he might be changed.
David begins as we all should in asking for God to do a mighty work in his heart. And in this act of asking God to create in him a clean heart, David opens himself up to receive the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. To receive transformation from God we have to come before Him humbly and honestly that he might have space to do the impossible in our lives.
God’s heart for us today is that we would put down our guards, take an honest look at our hearts, and recognize our need for transformation. He longs for us to take a moment and call out that which is robbing us of the abundant life He so willingly died to give us. God is willing and able to transform us. Whatever is heavy in our lives for so long will be healed if we will continually seek transformation from our loving heavenly Father.
I pray as we prepare our hearts for the New Year, we spend time with our Lord, listening and devoting ourselves completely to living honestly and humbly. If we will commit to seeking continual transformation, our efforts will produce life and peace rather than more burden. May our heart be filled with hope as the Holy Spirit works in our life today and as we prepare for what God has for us in the New Year.
AMEN!
