Another year ends!

As I have no idea what I am going to put into this post, I have no idea as to exactly when it will be posted!  However, as I start to type, it is only four hours until "the bells" - the passing of midnight, and the ushering in of a new year.

Perhaps the word on which I might focus is the word 'new'.  I remember, as a child at Primary School, having a 'copy book'.  The idea was that I learned to write correctly by literally copying, on the blank line underneath, the letters that were printed on one line of the book.  Of course, those were also the days of inkwells and pens with nibs!  Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I would sometimes dip my pen too far into the inkwell and, as a result, have too much ink on the nib.  Then, when I started to write, a big blob of ink would flow from the nib on to the page, leaving a big blot!  I had "blotted my copybook" (and now you know the origin of that particular saying!).  That blot was there to stay.  There was no way in which I was able to get rid of it.  How I longed for a new copybook that would allow me to have a fresh start, away from my earlier mistakes.

Life is a bit like that!  Each of us is continually "blotting our copybook"!  It's generic.  We have inherited it from our first parents, Adam and Eve who, in the Garden of Eden, allowed sin to enter the perfect world that Almighty God had created.   This is why we are born as sinners.  It is our human nature.  We may have to teach our children an awful lot as they grow - but I've yet to even hear of any parent having to teach a child to say 'No'; to be selfish; to 'throw a tantrum'.  You will be able to add to that list without my assistance!

Every day, I 'blot my copybook' - and so do you!  How may I be so certain?  Simply because I know people, and the Bible confirms what I have discovered experientially.  "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins." claims the writer of Ecclesiastes (Eccl. 7:20); while Paul writes "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me." (Rom 7:19-20) and, again, "... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom 3:23)

What I need is a new copybook; a fresh start; a new life.  And that is what the Lord Jesus offers, and promises, to all who come to Him in repentance and faith, and submit their lives to Him as their Saviour and Lord.  Those who do "... walk in newness of life." (Rom 6:4).

As you approach 2014, may I encourage you to seek the One Who, alone, can provide you with a new copybook for life - and discover that, all along, it is He Who has been seeking you!

A Happy New Year to one and all.  :-)