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If you happen to be reading this, you’ve made it to a new year. Congratulations, and Happy New Year. Welcome to 2024. With the new year, we reflect on God’s goodness toward us in the past, and we anticipate all the good things He has in store for us in the future. Of course, many of us will make our annual New Year’s resolutions, and if you are one of those people who resolve not to have resolutions, you are resolved just the same. What will you be resolved about this coming new year? I suggest you pray about it.
Perhaps some prayer suggestions from Philippians Chapter 1 may help. In Philippians 1:3 – 4 the Apostle Paul is reflecting on God’s goodness toward him in the past and recalling how God uses the church as a vehicle for that goodness. Paul writes, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” It’s so easy to be critical of Christ’s church. One theologian has compared the church to Noah’s Ark saying, “If it weren’t for the storm outside the church I wouldn’t be able to stand the stink on the inside of the church.” As you reflect on Christ’s church, pray for insight to see the lovely aspects of her. Rather than focus on what the church is now remind yourself of what she will someday be in Christ. Philippians 1:5 says, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 1:9 – 11 grants us further insight in how to pray in this new year. The Word of God says, “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
What an excellent prayer! I’ll pray that for you, and please, will you pray that for me? I’m so thankful for the prayers in the Bible. As Romans 8:26 says, “. . . the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” It’s particularly difficult to know what to pray for in this day and age, and the new year won’t make it any easier. We have come to the day that Aldous Huxley feared. Neil Postman described that fear in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Here is how Postman put it in his book:
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
Huxley was right, we are drowning in a sea of unlimited trivial distractions. Resolve to pray. Pray for wisdom to prioritize what is of eternal worth. Pray that our love for one another may abound more and more this coming new year at MVBC. Pray for knowledge and discernment. May this new year bring you excellence, more purity and sanctification. May you be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes only through a loving relationship with our precious Savior and Lord, namely Jesus Christ.
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