Revelation 21:5-6
Behold, I make all things new. It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
I am so thankful for the opportunities that God gives us to start all over again. It has been said that God is a God of the second chance. I can verify that and even take it further, He is also the God of the third, fourth, and even the fifth chance. This should be good news to those who have blown it as far as serving the Lord goes. He will give you another chance. His Word teaches that we have forgiveness as many times as we need it.
You may be thinking about now that I don’t know what you have done or not done. You are right, but I do know God and I know that His grace and mercy is greater than all your sin and shortcomings. The Bible does not specify a number, but only says that if we will confess our sins, that He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that sounds to me like a clean slate and it is surely welcome news. He is wiping our past clean and is letting us have the opportunity to start over. He is unhitching us from the load of guilt and condemnation that we have been carrying and is setting us free to begin anew to serve Him and find His best for our lives.
As we begin a new year, it is so important that we make some quality decisions. The first thing that we should decide to do is to forget about the failures of last year. They are done and there is nothing that we can do about them now. The second thing is that we should commit our lives afresh and anew to God and to His will for our lives. He has given us this new year and also given us a clean slate to start it with. We have never been here before. Let us choose today to serve the Lord with gladness and joy this next year, for we don’t know how long we have before He comes again.