Turning the Corner on 2024 – by Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from January 2025:
We made it! We made it through another madcap, tumultuous, challenging and wild roller coaster ride of a year. We made it through 2024! Or, more correctly, by God’s grace we made it. We made it because our Risen Lord empowered and enabled us, living his life in us.
There is great news as we begin this New Year of 2025! God is still in love with you. He cannot love you any more than he already has, because he has loved you, still does and always will… to the MAX! God is absolutely head-over-heels in love with you.
He’s got your picture on his refrigerator and he has your name, address and phone number on his cell phone.
The good news (GREAT NEWS actually) is that God’s love for you and me does not depend on how well 2024 went for us.
Perhaps 2024 was a tough year for you and your family. Maybe you had a terrible falling out. Words were said – maybe you regret ever saying things you did. Perhaps you lost your job in 2024. Perhaps you were a victim of crime in 2024,
Perhaps you have family members and friends who are disappointed with you. Perhaps they feel you are too conservative, or too liberal – if they know, they might be upset about who you recently voted for or who you did not, or perhaps they are upset because you rarely if ever vote.
Perhaps you had some major health issues in 2024. Maybe you were recently diagnosed and are now being treated for cancer. Fear and worry are thus part of your life – you still have lots of things to do and people you love, with whom you want to spend lots more time. Maybe all that was part of 2024.
You may look back at 2024 with grief – in fact you might still be grieving because of the loss of your husband or wife of many years. You may be trying to live in an empty house – you don’t know how to go on. You may be grieving a horrible loss. Maybe 2024 was the terrible year when a loved one was taken from you.
Whatever 2024 was for you, this is now a New Year – this is now 2025. It is time for you and me to turn the corner and look ahead. For Christ-followers the past is the past – it happened, it influenced our lives and perhaps we are still impacted by it.
But we do not live in the past. We live now, in the present, in Christ. He is alive. He is living in you right now. As Christ-followers we forget the past, we live in the present in our Risen Lord with Christ-centered hope for the future.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! (Isaiah 43:18-19, my emphasis).
As this New Year of 2025 dawns, this is the time to forget the past and focus on the future. Let us turn the corner on 2024 and make straight paths for our feet to focus on Jesus, and follow him into this New Year of 2025. We can’t start the next chapter in the book of our life if all we do is keep re-reading the past chapters.
“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with things right in front of you. Look up, be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life – even though invisible to spectators – is with Christ in God. He is your life (Colossians 1:1-4, The Message Bible, emphasis mine).
Forgetting the past, turning the corner and moving forward is to give up the illusion that we are in control of our lives and that what we do and fail to do can make all the difference in our lives. Jesus alone can make ALL the difference in our lives.
It’s a fallacy and a pipedream to believe that if we do the right things and avoid doing the wrong things then all details of our physical lives will be just as we desire them to be.
Give up the idea that you are in control of your life – after all, it’s really only giving up an illusion! As God’s children our life is enveloped and defined by Christ.
As God’s children we don’t care where we go, what we do, how long it takes… as long as we are with Jesus, and he is with us.
Giving up is the key to following Jesus Christ. Surrendering to Jesus is the key to getting over and past failures and embarrassments in life. The past happened – but the past is the past, and the past has nothing to do with the Jesus Way where we follow Jesus.
Giving up (surrendering to Jesus) is the way God enables us to deal with heavy stuff like guilt and shame – giving up (surrendering to Jesus) is the way we as Christ-followers are enabled to deal with divorce, death, tragedy, financial disasters, horrible accidents and all the evil that finds its way into our life.
By giving up I do not mean that we lay down and let life run roughshod over us. By giving up I do not suggest that we lay down on our couch and never again attempt to be a kind, gentle, giving, caring and sharing individual, as Christ lives his life in us.
By giving up I mean giving up the idea that what we do is the most important thing in life. By giving up I mean giving up thinking that we can manipulate God, or bargain with him, or impress him by all the good things we do.
By giving up I do not suggest that we stop serving others in the name of Christ.
By giving up I do not suggest that we stop praying, studying our Bibles, visiting the sick, responding to those in need as we have resources to do so.
By giving up I do not suggest we stop helping little old ladies across the street – or, if some of us are little old ladies (OR LITTLE OLD MEN) who need help crossing the street we stop allowing others to help us.
By giving up I mean that we put all the physical actions and deeds that we are able to accomplish in perspective, and realize that:
1) apart from Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5) – meaning of course nothing of eternal value and virtue.
2) apart from the grace of God our righteous deeds are without any eternal worth.
3) God does for us and in and through us what we cannot now nor never will be able to do for ourselves or others.
By giving up I mean resting in Christ, throwing ourselves on God’s mercies and experiencing the peace of God which passes all human understanding and all perception.
By giving up I mean turning the corner, forgetting the past (Philippians 3:13), pressing on and moving forward, in Christ – giving up our attempts to fix all the problems in our life, letting go and letting God do his job, which he does very well, thank you.
So my dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow partners in this ongoing work of CWR/PTM, let us look confidently into this New Year of 2025, knowing that we walk with and beside Jesus, who is with us and will never leave us.
Let us turn the corner on 2024, and all years before that, and all the days of our past, for we are now, by the grace of God, alive in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let us turn the corner and move forward, in faith and hope, giving thanks that …
“God has rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating” (Colossians 1:13-14, The Message Bible).
Your brother in Christ, following Jesus with you as we look forward to 2025,
Greg Albrecht
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