Thought for the week

The new year has started. May it be a good and blessed year for you and for those around you.

A new year often gives me the sense of something new and fresh. How is it for you? The festivities and activities of Christmas are over, we’ve celebrated Hogmanay and now we’re (almost) back into the normal routine.

A new year. A blank page, a clean slate. During Christmas I was thinking of the reason why God sent his son Jesus to us. What did God have in mind to come up with this rescue plan?

Of course, God knew that Jesus would be killed in the end – but that’s exactly what He wanted.

God the Father wanted to restore the relationship with us through his Son Jesus. It is the very reason he came. That speaks of love, sacrificial love. My personal thought for this first week is that the same Jesus whose arrival to Earth we’ve just celebrated, is also present today, this week, this new year. Jesus didn’t stay a baby. No, his story continues into our time, all according to God’s rescue plan for all people. When you read in the Bible in Matthew 28, he promises that he’ll be with us (vs 20): ‘And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ His everlasting presence is comforting to know.

My wish for you this year is that every new page of this year’s story will have Jesus’s watermark in it. That you may experience God’s love and his everlasting presence on every step of the way.