Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)

New Year

As the Christmas holiday begins to wind down we come to the New Year. This New Year, I've been struck by God's providence (God's supernatural oversight and arrangement of world events). Specifically I've been amazed at God's providential arragement of the books of the Christian Bible. If you have been reading through the Bible this year then you're aware that the last sections to be read are books of prophecy. The Old Testament ends with the post-exilic prophets (those prophets who ministered to Israel after the seventy year Babylonian exile), Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and the New Testament ends with John's Apocalypse. These books speak about the end of the present age and the beginning of a new age.

The theme of these books is: Restoration of true worship and godliness. The people of God had returned to the land, but they needed to rebuild the temple and establish the true worship of God and practice true religion of godliness.

I'm amazed at how God has providentially arranged for these prophets to be read at the end of the year because the themes of these prophetic books and the theme of New Year coincide. Usually during New Year's we think of leaving the old and bringing in the new--just what the prophets told God's people so many years ago.

This year as you go into the New Year, keep your eyes open for other similar providential events. Nothing happens by coincidence. God is at work. He is at work in your life. He's at work in your home and family, and God is working in our church.

As you go into the New Year, be sure to thank him for his watch care over your life. Make a decision to walk with him all through 2012. Every New Year can be a great year, if we walk with the Lord of all creation. The Bible says, "The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. I say to myself, "The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him! (Lamentations 3:22-24)."¹

Your servant in Messiah Jesus,

Pastor Steve
December 26, 2011

¹Lamentations 3:22-24, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.

Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. One of Jesus' techniques was to relate spiritual ideas to common everyday life. Pensamientos (afterthought) is an attempt to follow Jesus' method of teaching. Its title is in Spanish because we recognize the importance of multi-culturalism. We hope to translate some of these messages into Spanish soon.

Find more afterthoughts at Pensamientos (afterthoughts).

You can read recent sermons by Pastor Lorenz at Featured Sermon.