New Year, Same Goal

Hard to believe that yet another year is upon us. Last year brought about many changes and challenges. I know that many had similar experiences. Isn’t that just how life goes? Doors open and doors close. Seasons come and seasons go. Challenges come and change is inevitable. This is part of life.

The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us of the inevitability of change in chapter 3 verse 1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” Yet, even though we know that changes are part of life, we need to avoid being carried aimlessly amongst the changes. Social media is often a perfect example of flocks of individuals being carried aimlessly amongst changes. The latest trends in what is being said or what is being watched changes day by day and sometimes even hour by hour. Even as believers this aimless change and drift throughout life happens all too often for us.

One doesn’t have to look far in the Christian world to see that changing just for the sake of changing occurs constantly. Too often the church, in trying to engage the culture, seeks to look too much like that culture, be it in;  their music, their media presence, or their messages.  While the heart may be in the right place the goal has changed, the Gospel. As individual believers we do the same. We seek to love those closest to us by changing with them and on the one hand that isn’t bad. Paul states in Corinthians chapter 9 that he too becomes all things to all people. However, he does so with a singular goal in mind, the Gospel.

This, the Gospel,  is what cannot change. This is what we must remember so we do not drift aimlessly about with today’s culture. Like a ship poorly anchored or a tree shallowly rooted, ‘if Christ and his gospel is not where our eye remains trained, then all is but like a puff of smoke,’ to once again paraphrase the writer of Ecclesiastes. Anything that we experience in this life removed from the presence and awareness of Christ is but a hollow version of itself. Christ said it himself that he came to give us life, life in abundance (John 10:10).

So as we transition into the year of our Lord 2025. Let us do so for the prize that is the gospel. “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.” (1 Cor. 9:26-27) Don’t grow and change aimlessly in this new year, but grow and change by remaining and abiding in the presence of Christ who lives in all us who believe.

Blessings,
Austin Strange