The best new year's resolution

Have you ever wondered if New Year's Eve is important to God? God consists in the timelessness called eternity. When he created human beings, he placed them in a temporal scheme that is divided into days, weeks, months and years. There are many different calendars that people on this earth use. The Jewish New Year is not celebrated on the same day as New Year's Eve, but there are similar principles. No matter which calendar you use, New Year's Day is always the first day of the first month of the calendar year. Time is important to God. The Psalms reproduce a prayer of Moses, in which he prays for wisdom in dealing with time: “The days of our years are seventy years and, when in force, eighty years, and their pride is effort and futility, for they hurry quickly it's over and we fly there. So teach us to count our days so that we may have a wise heart! " (Psalm 90,10 and 12 Eberfeld Bible).

One thing the Bible teaches us about the nature of God is that He sets the pace and does things at just the right time. If something is supposed to happen on the first or the twentieth day of the month, it will happen on that day, to the hour, even to the minute. It is not a coincidence or an emergency, it is God's schedule. The life of Jesus was planned down to the smallest detail in terms of time and place. Even before Jesus was born, the plan was prepared and Jesus lived it out. That is one of the things that prove the divine nature of Jesus. No one can predict how his own life will develop, as Jesus and the prophets before him did. Both the birth of Jesus and his crucifixion and resurrection were foretold by the prophets many years before they happened. God did and said many things on Jewish New Year's Day. Here are three examples from biblical history.

Noah's Ark

When Noah was in the ark during the high tide, months passed before the waters subsided. It was on New Years Day when Noah opened the window and saw the water sink. Noah stayed in the ark for two more months, probably because he had gotten used to the comfort and safety his ship offered him. God spoke to Noah and said: "Get out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and your sons' wives with you!" (1. Mose 8,16).

God asked Noah to leave the ark, after all the earth was now completely dry. Sometimes we are inundated with problems in our life. Sometimes we are trapped in them and too comfortable to part with. We are afraid to leave them behind. No matter which comfort zone you are in, on New Year's Day 2021 God tells you the same words he said to Noah: Get out! There's a new world out there and it's waiting for you. Last year's floods may have inundated, knocked down, or challenged you, but on New Year's Day is God's message for you to start over and be fruitful. It is said that a burned child will shy away from fire, but you need not fear it. A new year is beginning, so go outside - the waters that came over you have sunk.

The temple construction

God instructed Moses to build a temple in the shape of a tent. This symbolized the place where God dwelt with people. After the material was prepared, God said to Moses: "You shall set up the tabernacle of the tabernacle on the first day of the first month" (2. Moses 40,2). Building the pencil hut was a special task that was earmarked for a special day - New Years Day. Many years later, King Solomon built a temple out of solid material in Jerusalem. This temple was desecrated and abused by the people in later times. King Hezekiah decided that something had to change. The priests went into the sanctuary of the temple and began to clean it on New Year's Day: «But the priests went inside the house of the Lord to clean it and put everything that was unclean that was found in the temple of the Lord in the forecourt at House of the Lord, and the Levites picked it up and carried it out to the Kidron Stream. But with the consecration they began on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they went into the Lord's porch and consecrated the Lord's house for eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished the work »(2. 2 Chr9,16-17).

What does this mean for us? In the New Testament Paul speaks of us being the temple of God: «Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If someone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is holy - it is you »(1. Corinthians 3,16)
If you don't already believe in God, God invites you to stand up to become His temple and He will come and dwell in you. If you already believe in God, then his message is the same as that given to the Levites thousands of years ago: cleanse the temple on New Year's Day. If you have become unclean through sexual impurity, lust, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfishness, discord, envy, drunkenness, and other sins, then God invites you to be cleansed by Him and start doing it on New Year's Day. Have you already started? It could be the best New Year resolution of your life to become the temple of God.

Leave Babylon!

There is another New Year's experience documented in the book Ezra. Ezra was a Jew who lived in exile with many other Jews in Babylon because Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. After Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, Ezra the scribe decided to return to Jerusalem. He wanted to teach people thoroughly what was in the scriptures. We would like to do the same and say to you: Today we are the spiritual temple of God and his church. So the temple was a symbol for us believers and Jerusalem the symbol for the church. "For on the first day of the first month he decided to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him" (Ezra [space]]7,9).

He decided to leave Babylon on New Year's Day. On this New Year's Day, you too can choose to return to the church (represented by Jerusalem). You may be stuck in the Babylon of your lifestyle, your work, your missteps. There are believers who are spiritually still in Babylon, even if they could fulfill urgent tasks from Jerusalem, the church. Just like Esra, you can now choose to make your return journey home - to the church. Your church is waiting for you. It could be a strenuous journey, especially the first steps towards home. You know, a long journey begins with the first step on the first day of the first month. It took Esra four months to arrive. You have the opportunity to start today.

I hope that you will look back on New Year's Eve and say: “I am glad that, like Noah, I stepped out of the ark's comfort zone, into the new world that God had prepared for him. Like Moses, who set up the tabernacle on New Year's Day, or like Ezra, who decided to leave Babylon behind him to learn more about God! " I wish you a very good year!

by Takalani Musekwa