Stir up your power! (Psalm 80:3)
In just a couple of weeks, we will celebrate New Year’s Day. To mark the new year, some of us will compose a list of resolutions. Well, the Church started its new year two weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Advent, so now may be a very good time to make some spiritual resolutions. In fact, today offers us a great opportunity to call with the psalmist, “O Shepherd of Israel… . Give me new life” (Psalm 80:2, 19)!
The truth is, Jesus has given us new life—not the old, fallen life revamped, but a whole new way in the Spirit. He has given us the life the Father intended us to have from the beginning: a life marked by a close, living relationship with him. It’s a life characterized by freedom, transparency, and openness, a life in which hiding, shadows, and fear are banished by the light of God’s love and the power of the cross. None of us has experienced that life in its fullness yet, so we can cry out for more of it!
So go ahead, and ask the One who promises to make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The love, compassion, kindness, or gentleness that doesn’t exist in you yet—he can form it in you. The joy, the confident assurance of the Father’s love, the peace that sustains you in the midst of chaos—the One who spoke creation into being can speak these gifts into being in you. He transformed the blustering boldness of Peter into leadership; why would he do any less for you?
Jesus answers the cry for new life with staggering generosity. He has given us a new spirit, a new humanity, a new birth, and a new heart. His new life includes new growth, a new teaching, and a new command secured by a new covenant. He pours new wine into our hearts, puts a new song in our mouths, and even enables us to praise him in new tongues. Yes, the Shepherd of Israel has harkened!
So pause today, and examine what God has made new in your life, what might still need to be made new, or what you hope he will make new. And call out to him!
“Jesus, give me more of your new life. Rouse your power, Lord, and make us all anew.”
Sirach 48:1-4, 9-11; Matthew 17:9-13
Father Ed Bakker
Anglican Catholic Church / Original Province
Mission of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
Bendigo
Australia
