LIGHT FOR THE NEW Y EA R
By George H. Mundell*
A WAKE thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). Are you asleep ? As we go into this New Year must you be awakened? Have you failed to live as you should for your Lord during this past year ? Have the cares and problems and things of the world defeated you in your Chris tian life during this past year? Then let us take this call from the Lord, and for the New Year receive our light from Christ. Each New Year’s Day you have made good resolutions; you would not do that thing which you should not. You would do that which was good. But in just a few days, or weeks, or possibly months, you have slipped back into your old ways. That is you. You have been going on in your own strength. Why not let God do it? He wants to give the light, and all you have to do is to let it shine through you. If you have been born of God, you are a child of light, and a child of light bears His light to the world. He bears fruit of the Holy Spirit of God. According to God’s Word, the fruit of the Spirit is “ Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentle ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper ance” (Gal. 5:22,23). If the Christian fails to bear fruit for God, God says that he is asleep or dead. He tells you to awake from your sleep and to rise from your death that Christ shall give you light. Even though you have been born-again, saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, darkness can close in upon you. This book of Ephesians, through which God tells us to awake and arise, was written to Christians in the church at Ephesus. So it is to you, a Christian who is not bearing fruit, that God is speaking. Your body can become soiled spiritually, just as it does physically. Then the light of Jesus Christ cannot shine through you. What causes this defilement, sleep or death ? It is the result of the lack of prayer, neglect in reading the Word of God, failure to allow God to live your life for you and to go on with the Lord in the work He has given you. You should be associating with other Chris tians, giving your support to the local church, and in every way possible let Jesus Christ shine His light through you. How can you live for the Lord? Light produces life. Look at a seed you place in the ground. It has to die to produce the fruit. That little seed looks dead, just
as you do if you are not shining forth the life of light for your Lord. You have to die to whatever it is that is holding you back from going on with the Lord. You have to die to that bad habit, to anything you put before the Lord, no matter how good that thing is:
He wants to do through your life. As you grow in the Lord things which were all right for you to do when you were not saved, or when you were a younger Christian are wrong for you to do now. The Light has given you that discern ment. It makes things which did not seem like sin show up in their true light and they are sin for you as a Christian who is going on with the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ has no way of shining His light in this world except through your life and the lives of other Christians. He needs you to shine for Him, to show His light to the world. God has told us that we are to be changed from image to image into the image of our Lord. Do you look any more like your Lord today than you did this time last year? Do you act any more like Jesus Christ today than you did last year? Do you shine more for Jesus Christ today than you did when, you were first saved? Beloved of God, that is what God wants of your life. He wants you to be a light-bearer to this world. In First John 1:5-7 God says: “ This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” As you start this New Year, can you say that in you God is light and there is no darkness at all? No matter how spiritual you are, how much work you do for the Lord, how much time you spend in prayer or Bible reading and study, you can still go on for the Lord. God wants you to put out of your life all darkness. Any light that shines through your life is going to change things around you. Just give light a little bit of a crack to get through and it will penetrate the darkness. God’s light in you will penetrate the things around you and change them into that which will glorify the Lord. Souls will be saved and lives changed. Give your all to the Lord. Turn your life over to Him, that He may direct every move, every thought, every mo ment. Study God’s precious Word that He may speak to you through it. Do whatever work the Lord has given to you. Give your support of time, talent and money to your local church. Make that. marvelous contact with the power of Almighty God through prayer. “ Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
New Year Chime By Ida C. Young Another year has gone—gone for ever. The days, the hours, the minutes, all have flown. But every deed that's done and every word that's said Are seeds of good or bad that's sown. Our works shall follow us. O, solemn thought! Would that in Jesus Christ they all were wrought! Farewell, old year farewell! 'Tis true We'd love to muse on things awhile that you have brought to view. But hark! What's that I hear ap proaching. Which like as hope doth cause us all to look ahead And make us feel we all have nobler work to do? 'Tis the New Year with garb of un known fate. Most heartily we bid you welcome in His name; To Him committing every joy and care Whose love today and ever is the same. business or making money, your wife or husband, your children or your home. Not one single thing may come ahead of the Lord. God says He must be first. When He is first in your life, He will give you all these good things, but first you must die to them. You must know that the Lord is your very life, your very light. Prayer is the connecting link be tween the power of God and your life. If you do not turn the switch, or light the lamp, you do not get light. It is still dark. That is what gives you the use of the power of Almighty God. Jesus Christ, your Saviour, must live for you. It is not a question of what you want to do with your life, but what
* Pastor of Maran-atha Tabernacle, Darby, Pa. Page Eight
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