2017. Let that sink in for a bit.

Ok, now that it has sunk in we can talk about what it means. We are living in a new year but these things remain true at any time: Jesus is still king. The Lord of all creation still loves you. The world will always be His. Any problems we have can be brought before Him.

Some of us has been shaken by 2016. Others may feel broken and scarred by it. Coming into 2017 we feel weak and wounded. We need a restoration. We need a redeemer to show us what our lives can be when all we can see is the brokenness. We need Jesus to make us new. Good news is that can happen. Bad news is we have to let Him work on making us new every day.

New Year’s resolutions don’t work so well if we aren’t resolved to them every new day of the year. In the same way, the restoration and redemption found in Christ has to be renewed each day if we want to live fully in it. We get to be new. That happens every day. We can choose to honor Christ with that newness or not.

The year is new and so are you. The day is new and so are you. Christ gives us the chance to see and experience the world in a new way, with Him as our primary interpreter for what is going on around us. In the light of Christ’s activity in the world we see what is going on in a different way. This is part of the newness offered to us. It is one of my favorite things. Getting to see through new eyes helps me to make sense of a world that can be pretty senseless sometimes. I get to be new. Others get to be new. The world gets to be new. Not just once a year. But every single day.