January 1
Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus, how Wonderful You Are,
You are brighter than the morning Star.
You are fairer, more fairer than the lily that grows by the way,
You are precious, more precious than gold.
What a joyous morning on the surface of the earth, just some few hours ago, everyone was anxiously waiting for the clock to tick at 12midnight and a seconds after, there goes a thunderous shout of “HAPPY NEW YEAR “ everywhere, both old and young. People were rejoicing, dancing, shouting, clapping and jumping up. One may wonder why the jubilation? It has been an age long event and with the level of mishaps and deaths all over the world, people cannot but rejoice and give thanks to God Who preserved them among the living; so let the living praise the Lord!
To the glory of God, we welcome you to year 2014, our Year of “Divine Favour” (Isa 61:2). It is also the year the Lord’s vengeance shall fall on our enemies. Beloved, are you excited? You don’t need to imagine it because it has been settled long before the arrival of the year.
This year, the Lord’s favour will rest upon you, what your connection have not done for you all these years, what your certificate cannot get for you, including what your own strength has not been able to do for you, the arm of the Lord will. All you need do is to hold on to Him and see Him not only elevate you; but also subdue all your enemies; His enemies. Praise the Lord!!!
Beloved, do you understand fully what it means to be favoured by God? The Spirit of God gave me rhema to the one favoured by God, such a person overcomes all and achieve all effortlessly, it does not exempt work but it exclude toiling. So many people are toiling in life, running from pillar to pole. Achieving efforts other than result, but this year the story will change for you.
The favour of God will lift you above mere success syndrome and place you among the achievers (Prov 22:29). Simply put, it’s a grace to excel supernaturally. We encourage you to read the whole chapter of Isaiah 61 for a full glimpse of what the Lord is set to do for us this year.
Don’t forget that the Lord also promised vengeance upon your enemies, those who think your end has come, will be surprise on the recent happenings in your life. So don’t be tried about that situation, never give up, for your enemies will drink their blood and eat their flesh according to the Word of the Lord (Isa 49:24-26).
Every new year ushers in fresh or renewed resolutions to live right. We decide and sworn never to go that way again, but no sooner than we come out from the place of promise, we see ourselves right in the very act we vowed never again. Who is to be blame, you may be force to ask? Come and see what happens when you don’t bind yourself in Him, when you choose to do it by your power other than the power of the Almighty :
When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”—John 21:15
Jesus has a wonderful way of restoring us when we fail Him! He does not humiliate us. He does not criticize us. He does not ask us to make a resolution to try harder. Rather, He takes us aside and asks us to reaffirm our love for Him.
Peter miserably failed his Lord when he fled with the other disciples from the Garden of Gethsemane. Later, he publicly denied that he even knew Jesus. Peter must have wondered if he had been capable of being Jesus’ disciple when he was unfaithful to Jesus in His most crucial hour.
As you begin a new year, you may be painfully aware that you have failed your Lord in many ways. Perhaps you were not faithful. Perhaps you disobeyed His word to you. Perhaps you denied Him by the way you lived. Jesus will take you aside, as He did Peter. He will not berate you. He will not humiliate you. He will ask you to examine your love for Him. He asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” If your answer, like Peter’s, is “Yes, Lord,” He will reaffirm His will for you. If you truly love Him, you will obey Him (John 14:15).
Jesus does not need your resolutions, your recommitments, or your promises to try harder this year. If your resolve to obey God last year did not help you to be faithful, it will not make you successful this year. Jesus asks for your love. If you truly love Him, your service for Him in the new year will be of the quality that He desires and you will be glad and rejoice in Him
Are you ready!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“We will be glad and rejoice in Thee.” Song 1:4
We will be glad and rejoice in Thee. We will not open the gates of the year to the dolorous notes of the sackbut, but to the sweet strains of the harp of joy, and the high sounding cymbals of gladness. “O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise unto the rock of our salvation.”
We, the called and faithful and chosen, we will drive away our griefs, and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles, we who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah’s bitter pool, with joy will magnify the Lord. Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which Thou dwellest, will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus.
We WILL, we are resolved about it, Jesus must have the crown of our heart’s delight; we will not dishonour our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence. We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies, let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem. We will BE GLAD AND REJOICE: two words with one sense, double joy, blessedness upon blessedness. Need there be any limit to our rejoicing in the Lord even now? Do not men of grace find their Lord to be camphire and spikenard, calamus and cinnamon even now, and what better fragrance have they in heaven itself?
We will be glad and rejoice IN THEE. That last word is the meat in the dish, the kernel of the nut, the soul of the text. What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, ay, and every drop of their fullness in Him!
Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, Thou art the present portion of Thy people, favour us this year with such a sense of Thy preciousness, that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in Thee. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.
Once again my dearly beloved, Welcome into the year of the Lord, Year 2014, our Year of “Divine Favour”
Remain blessed in the Lord.
Evang. Ifeoma Ohondu.
