We are filled with a different joy and excitement in surrendering our lives to the Saviour, Lord Jesus. We develop an earnest desire deep within our souls to study, meditate upon the Word of God and to pray for His guidance. Filled with His power we readily face all troubles also with hope of being helped and rescued by Him. Then, just like people look forward to the new year for a new beginning, in our lives, everyday itself brings new blessings and beginnings.
Spiritual and material aspects of new beginnings – The Psalmist declares the command of God for all mankind, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations’ (Psalm 46:10). This is a call to stop striving or for giving up human efforts, quieting all anxieties and surrendering to God as the only source of strength and refuge. God must be exalted in our lives to let Him do His will that brings peace, success and joy. The shortest verse in the Holy Bible is about our Lord Jesus expressing anguish and pain at the suffering of Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus, their brother (John 11:35). By raising him from the dead, a new beginning was given to him and to start afresh with a true realisation of death and separation from the loved ones.
God promised the Israelites a new beginning for them and commanded them, ‘Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old’ (Isaiah 43:18-19). It is only by looking forward that we can step into new ways. The next word from the Lord is ‘Behold’, a command to look up from their darkness and present troubles to focus on what is being shown. This is to stop for a moment, look, listen, discern and realign their sights, for God Himself is calling to reveal His intention. He declares, ‘I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth’. Such a call is about something different and greater than the Red Sea crossing, with the destruction of the mighty Egyptian army in the same sea, after the Israelites had crossed on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-27).
Our Lord God alone is the author of genuinely new things, for He is the Creator and it all subsists in Him. God confirmed His unchanging nature through the Prophet Malachi, ‘I am the LORD, I do not change’ (Malachi 3:6). He does not change, so He always can and does bring fresh and reliable newness in our lives. The past year may have been a time of great trouble and suffering due to innumerable reasons, both of our own and the devil’s doing. But God brings a new beginning and He has already set it in motion. It is not because of anything good in us but due to His great love and compassion. The Prophet rightly said about this new work of God, ‘I will work a new work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you’ (Habakkuk 1:5). Martha and Mary could never have believed, had they been told earlier about their brother being raised from the dead, but the Lord did raise Him after four days, giving him an entirely new beginning in life. The promise is to me and to all of us, filling us with confidence in His Word.
King David encouraged himself by believing, to say, ‘I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living’ (Psalm 27:13). David, while fleeing from Saul, did despair to say in his heart, ‘Now, I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul’ (1 Samuel 27:1). God not only saved him but he is known as the best king that Israel ever had, with a promise of an ‘everlasting kingdom’ to his Son, the Messiah. This new work that God has started in our lives in this new year, is not visible to the naked eye. We see this blessed beginning through the eyes of faith.
The Syrian army besieged Samaria and a great famine like situation arose, with no food in the city (2 Kings 7:3-20). Four lepers who were living outside the city, decided to go to the enemy camp to either receive food or get killed, for even otherwise they would die of hunger. The sound of the dragging feet of the lepers was used by God for the Syrians ‘to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses’. They left everything and fled to save their lives. The lepers had their fill and then went to tell the gatekeepers in Samaria. The LORD God ensured that His people had food in abundance as also victory over their enemy without even fighting them. Making everything new, God ‘turns wilderness into pools of water, and dry land into water springs’ (Psalm 107:33).
Lord Jesus became Man to effect a change from within, in everyone who believes in Him. The evil soul ties created because of our past life get cut off and our thinking process itself starts changing. We also, like Him, start feeling the pain of others and start reaching out to them with spiritual and material help as we can. Then, in every moment of our lives, we look towards Him, to rejoice and thank Him for everything for that is the blessed desire of our Father for us (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
God’s way of bringing new things – Joseph was the son of Rachel, the wife whom Jacob loved more than Leah, the other wife, and he loved him more than his other sons (Genesis 37:4-5). Joseph dreamed a dream and believed in God to fulfil that and remained true to the Word taught by His father and lived righteously as a slave, in prison for a false accusation and also as the Number two man in Egypt, next to Pharaoh. Reuben was the firstborn son of Jacob, from Leah, who tried to save Joseph from being sold but failed (Genesis 37:22-29). Judah suggested selling him to the Ishmaelites, ‘for he is our brother and our flesh’. Joseph’s successful trap brought the brothers in guilt before him and he demanded that Benjamin, his brother from his mother Rachel, not go back but be his slave (Genesis 44:16-33).
The new beginning in Judah’s life led him to say to Joseph, ‘we have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, who is young; his brother is dead’. Since Joseph was dressed like an Egyptian, spoke only the Egyptian language with them and used an interpreter, they could not recognise him. Judah further said, ‘he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him’. He surrendered himself to be the slave and said, ‘please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers’. It was this change in Judah that finally made Joseph reveal his true identity to them and then send them back to come back to live with him.
Leah was not loved by Jacob and when her fourth son was born, while Rachel was barren, she named him Judah. With the birth of the first three sons, Reuben, Simeon and Levi, she hoped that ‘now my husband will love me’. The name Judah means praise and she named him thus, saying, ‘Now I will praise the LORD’. Joseph dreamed and continued in faith despite all the odds he suffered. Judah had seen and felt the pain of his mother, like Reuben, the eldest brother, and true to his name was affected by each event in his life. Jacob did not accept Reuben’s guarantee to bring Benjamin safely back but trusted Judah. Judah could assure Jacob to send Benjamin with them, by saying, ‘I myself will be surety for him; from my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever’ (Genesis 43:9-14). Judah had borne the weight of his guilt in sending Joseph into slavery and his unfair dealing with his daughter-in-law, Tamar.
While other brothers were focused on getting food from Egypt, only he was concerned about the pain of his father Jacob. God, who examines the hearts, chose him, for greatness. When Jacob knew that his end was near, he called all his sons to him to tell them, ‘What shall befall you in the last days’ (Genesis 49:1-11). About Judah, he prophesied, ‘Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s children shall bow down to you’. Gazing far ahead, he could say, ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people’. The coming of the Messiah, the King of Kings was revealed then, to be through the tribe of Judah.
Joseph became great and was used by God to save many lives during the seven years of famine. But it was Judah, who was chosen for a new beginning in his life of greatness and being a blessing to future generations, through his descendants, David and Lord Jesus, the great ‘Son of David’, the Messiah. God desires to use every child of His for fulfilment of great plans for the inhabitants of the earth but only those get blessed, who surrender to His ways.
Following God’s plan – Apostle Paul was on the Crete island for a short while and left Titus there to be the Pastor. He stated the past state of those believers and all of us as, ‘we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another’ (Titus 3:3). We were all slaves to sin and the devil. During the Old Testament times, slavery was common all over and the master of a slave had total authority over him to punish him even with death. A slave who escaped from his master and was caught was likely to suffer very severe punishment. The Holy Bible is the story of mankind becoming slaves to the devil and his lies and sin and then set free by the blood of Lord Jesus.
Apostle Paul was himself involved in the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr of the Church. At the time of Stephen’s death, ‘Those involved in stoning him, laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul’ (Acts 7:58). It was the same Saul ‘still breathing threats and murder against the disciples’ , who was touched by Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-18). He became the great teacher and preacher Apostle Paul after being freed from the false teaching of the Pharisees and Jewish leaders of the time. When God writes the story, the bonds are broken and slaves are set free and a new beginning given.
A slave ran off from his master in Colosse and reached Rome to start a life free from bondage. Apostle Paul was under house arrest there by the Roman authorities awaiting hearing by Emperor Caesar, for preaching the Gospel. The slave named Onesimus met him, was baptised and finally disclosed about his runaway status. Onesimus means ‘fruitful’ and was encouraged by Apostle Paul to return to Colosse to his master Philemon, who was also baptised by the Apostle. He would have been told by Onesimus about what could be his fate, if he returned but was sent with a letter by the Apostle. The great Apostle gave Onesimus a letter addressed to Philemon, his owner. He wrote to Philemon, and his wife Apphia, son Archippus were also mentioned, for they conducted a church service in their house (Philemon 1-19). Philemon was later martyred during the reign of Emperor Nero, who blamed the Christians for the destruction of Rome through the fire.
In the letter, Apostle Paul first gave the new identity of Onesimus as his spiritual son who was once unprofitable being an unwilling slave but now will be, in faith and submission. He then urged that this previous slave be accepted now as a ‘brother in faith’. And then he goes a step further to say that Onesimus be accepted by Philemon and his family as they would receive Apostle Paul himself. Probably the runaway slave had stolen something to sustain himself and the Apostle committed to make good any such losses himself. Just like Onesimus, we also were God’s children but we rebelled and became slaves of evil and Satan. Lord Jesus redeemed us by paying the full penalty through His death on the cross, resurrection and ascension. As a guarantee of our freedom and to strengthen and guide us to live a life worthy of our new status, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Lord Jesus in His prayer said, ‘And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are One’ (John 17:22). With this, just as Philemon was asked to receive Onesimus, we are also required to live with other believers in a deep, spiritual communion that reflects the very nature of God Himself. When a person leaves this body, a certificate of our testimony is given by the Holy Spirit and received by Lord Jesus, our High Priest in heaven. He presents us before God the Father certifying our final clearance of all debts and prays that the father would receive each one of us as He had received His own Son. In the presence of God, we do not go to receive judgement but abundant and unlimited love. We join angels and other believers to worship and rejoice. When God writes our story, after we surrender to Him, paths become visible in the seas of trouble and His hand leads us into newness of life in Him.
In this life we face varying types of challenges and almost everyone desires to have a new beginning and rewrite the story of our past. As per Scripture, God is always writing and beginning a new plan for our lives. With God’s blessings, then, filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit we get equipped to face the circumstances and change them for our benefit. The promise of God for a new beginning renews us with great hope and joy in Him!
