Have a Christ-Focused New Year!

It seems safe to say that 2016 will:

- produce more tragedy in Syria and Yemen;

- witness an uninterrupted stream of refugees into Europe, as the Middle East and its crippling problems spreads around the world;

- signal deepening drought in the Chinese east and American west;

- host further computer hacking attacks on both state and corporate levels;

- see corruption continuing to damage three-quarters of the world’s kingdoms – leaving the vast majority of humanity disillusioned and increasingly unlikely to vote.

A huge amount of summits / conferences will be generated in efforts to deal with all of these discouraging events.

But what for the Christian?

I think of the appeal of Henry Francis Lyte:

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see: O Thou who changest not, abide with me!

Plus the apostle Paul, on whose words Henry Lyte must have leaned, encourages us at all times to focus on the fact that is underlined in Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

Our challenge is to focus on Him ... Certainly. ... Continually. ... And in a way that sees us Conformed into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

There are things about Christ that we need very much at the end of 2015 and start of 2016:

• We need the perseverance of Christ in the face of affliction.

• We need the power - the energy and strength - of Christ in the face of pressures that so rapidly deplete our resources.

• We need the wisdom of Christ in the face of complexities of life.

• We need the stability of Christ in the middle of rapid social and political and personal changes all around us.

• We need the assurance of His sovereign authority in a culture that is sliding farther and farther from His truth (to hear again His promise that, in spite of all the slides in morals and virtue, He is still on course, doing His chief work, building His Church; Matthew 16:18).

Our needs at the end of 2015 (and going into 2016) are not primarily financial, but spiritual. We need to be the kind of people that radiate the beauty and truth and value of Christ. We need to be like lights shining in a dark place. Which means we need to behold Jesus. We need to gaze at Christ.

Have a Happy and most Blessed New Year!!