Happy New Year - #2

January 04, 2016 Monday Message:

“Now you must repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.” Acts 3:19

Happy New Year! Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? A resolution to change something implies that something was headed in the wrong direction, that something in your life NEEDED to change - for the better.

It’s a new year – consider it a fresh start, a re-start on our lives. We can begin the new year with a clean slate. We can learn from our past mistakes and change for the better. We can resolve to turn from our past and head in a new direction.

Our relationship with God is kind of like that. We confess our sins, but that’s not the end of it. The Hebrew word we translate as “repent,” tschuva (CHEW-vah), indicates a turn, a change of direction. Sin had been taking us farther from God, but now we turn back and resolve to live closer to God’s way. “Repent” isn’t just about being sorry for what went wrong. Repentance requires turning away from the old behavior, living our lives in a different way – a better way in the future.

If our past mistakes cause us to re-think those past decisions, and to live our lives in a better way, closer to God, are they really mistakes? Sometimes our mistake is God’s teachable moment.

Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship (JICF) meets at 10 am every Sunday in the North end (gym) of the Oliver Ministry Building, 2647 Bloomington Ave., Minneapolis. This Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, Pastor Van Dickerson speaks as Jesus teaches the Parable of the Sower, Mark 4:1-8.