Dear friends,
A happy and joy-filled 2024 to you.
In the words of St. Paul I pray “May God bless you all. Yes, I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will give each of you his fullest blessings and his peace in your hearts and your lives “. Philippians 1:2
The year 2024 is an opportunity for new beginnings. A time to return to our pre-COVID activities with energy. With the return of the Common Cup, let us build a new normality. Let us be serious about our spiritual lives and the growth of our congregations, Sunday School, teens and young adult ministries. Let us put programmes in place showing love and care. Let us be open to the possibilities for growth. Let us start by renewing our life in Christ, with Christ and for Christ.
I invite us to do the following:
Spend time with God: -15-20 minutes in quiet time and pray daily for the Church and our own ministry. (suggested prayers below)
Read a devotional. (2 are posted in the chat every day)
Prepare ourselves for service on Sunday by reading the assigned lessons before hand.
My message for the New Year is inspired by a sermon preached by Canon Weeville Gordon which he varied on 3 different occasions. But the essence rings true as we look towards a new year. I recall him using the words from the following poem “God Knows” written by Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957) on another occasion and I would like us to reflect on this poem and to note that what he wanted for his congregations at that time is what I want for the 6 congregations of the Gilnock Santa Cruz Cure, as we look forward to the start of another calendar year. Canon Gordon reminded his congregation that God has not given them the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind” He said God had led them safely to the new year despite the problems and that they should put their hands in hands of the God for the new year.
Minnie Haskins wrote
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His will Is best.
The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God.
Our fears Are premature;
In Him, All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
As we come to the end of another year with all its joys and pleasures, with all its trials, and disappointments let us give God thanks for the guidance and direction, even when we chose not to follow it. For some there is much to celebrate, but others will consider 2023 to be a year when things did not work in our favour and they end the year praying for a better outcome this year. But God hand has led us safely through it all.
No matter how bad it got, you were given the strength to carry on. My mother would say see God in all things. God walked with us in the dark till the way became clear. God has brought us through. God is prepared to hold our hand again this year and to lead us through the dark times and the bright times. This year I wish that we would place our hands into Gods hands and feel God guiding us. I wish that we would spend more time with God and the things of God. I wish that we would consider all we plan to do as glorifying God.
As I write, I think of the song ‘Happy Anniversary’ sung by Ray Goodman and Brown It says "Funny how, time flies, Another year, has come and gone, And we're still, together here, With a love, so very strong... Cause I made my, resolution, This is my own constitution To love you more and more each day." It is my fervent prayer that through 2024, we will choose as our constitution to love God, our fellow members and those who are not like us more and more each day. I pray that our resolution will be to be open to what God is doing even when God is not acting as we expect God to act. I pray that we will understand God’s unconditional love knows no bounds, has no judgements and it accepts things for what they are knowing that the snags will pass and the good times are ahead. God welcomes us all with open arms and we must welcome our fellow human beings in the same way. When we feel our biases creeping in let us ask ourselves if we ask are looking through the eyes of Love?
Our church describes the ideal and we must strive to do our best, but we falter. We continue knowing that it is Jesus who will bring us faultless before God’s throne of Grace. (Jude 1:24)
God gives us the strength to “struggle blindly on, guided by a hand you couldn’t see” (Weeville Gordon 1961). That hand, that help, that strength, that is always there that holds us in amazement is God’s. We se it at work, as we see our fears dissipate and joy comes to us.
In Numbers 6:22-27, which is many times referred to as the Aaronic blessing, God tell Moses to tell Aaron and his sons, who were the priests in those days to bless the Israelites saying to them, The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. In so doing, they were putting God’s name on the Israelites, and in this manner God blessed them.
As we come to the end of 2023 with mixed feelings and a lot of feelings of inadequacies, and insecurities, let us look back not with saddened and sorrowful hearts but “with hearts full of thankfulness to God for his bountiful mercies so lavishly bestowed on us His unworthy servants.” (Gordon)
Let us turn our face steadfastly to the future of 2024 just as “Jesus had set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem and so to Calvary”, understanding that "Jesus was only able bear the cross because he understood he had a spirit and it was not the spirit of fear, but of the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind." Let us accept that life happens, sometimes good sometimes bad and most times the good and bad occur at the same time, but God is always with us.
As we face the new year with all its challenge “we need not be timid souls who walk with the spirit of fear, but souls who know that Gods walks with them.” Isaiah says The Spirit of the Lord is on each of us, We have been anointed to receive the good news of Jesus and in so doing, as we comfort the brokenhearted and set the captives free, we too can find comfort. We can rejoice because this spirit that God has poured out on us allows us to not fear. The spirit gives us permission to be ourselves but not in a bad way.
As Paul says We are always surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God has never left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we are broken. God has planted us like strong and graceful oaks for his own glory.
Let us friends in 2024 energize ourselves in God’s spirit let us live for God and only God, let us lift up ourselves in the power of Gods name. May the man who stands at the gate of the 2024 “Give us a light that that we may tread safely into the unknown.”
Let us say the Aaronic blessing to ourselves
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
“May God bless you all. I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will give each of you his fullest blessings and his peace in your hearts and your lives “. Philippians 1:2