2023
A very happy New Year to you! In our house we don’t keep decorations up until 12th night. I am all for clearing away the Christmas tree, lights, cards and various other festive things as soon as we hit January.
It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, I do! But I don’t like it all still around as January begins. Confession: I actually enjoy taking the decorations down, returning them to the loft and tidying up!
The house does look bare and uncluttered, but it seems like a good place to start at the beginning of the year.
I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions. I do reflect on the last year and try to prayerfully ‘posture’ myself for the next 12 months, and all that God may have in store!
I recently read again Jesus’ greatest public speech, known as the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, and he concludes it saying…
“They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit - but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.”
Jesus wrapped His great ‘Sermon on the Mount’ with a stunning illustration about a couple of builders. The ‘wise’ one had a good solid foundation, and therefore what he built stood in times of trouble.
That could not be said for the ‘foolish’ one, who built on sand. It collapsed when the storm came as there was no secure foundations.
Jesus said that His words are foundational for doing life! The phrase that sticks out to me in this translation is ‘work these words into your life’. That is like mixing ingredients together when baking or making a meal. Together they shape and form the whole of what is produced.
If we allow what Jesus says to form and shape us, they are like good, solid, secure foundations on which the whole of our life is built.
Let me encourage to read Matthew 5-7 at the start of 2023. Before you do, ask God to show you things you may not have seen before. Then let Him work those words into your life, and see what happens…
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader