Listening to most of the pundits and tea-leaf readers, you might think 2014 will follow a doomsday scenario. I don’t know who is right and who is wrong, but I am looking forward to experiencing the coming year through the eyes of eternity.
For some people, 2014 will be just another uneventful year. For others, it may be joyous and blessed. Still for others, it may bring tragedy and difficult circumstances. That’s how life is and always will be. There is nothing new under the sun.
But when seeing circumstances through God’s eyes—whether they be good or bad, joyful or sorrowful—they are just that: circumstances. What matters to God is how we faithfully persist in serving Him and others.
We press on by focusing on the following facts:
- God is, and always will be, on His throne. He is working out His plan, and no catastrophic event can change that.
- God’s power and the power of His Word will continue to work in millions of lives around the world.
- Like last year and the year before, millions of people will come to Christ, responding to the supernatural love He displayed on the cross.
- Many of those millions of new Christians will choose to follow Christ with the full knowledge that they are risking their lives.
- Millions of faithful believers will sacrifice their resources, their health and even their lives to reach those who are in desperate need.
- As we begin another year, God will continue to separate His sheep from the goats—meaning He will separate the blessed from the cursed based on faithfulness to Him, getting us ready for the final day.
If I am one of the people to face death this year (or, more accurately, enter into the true eternal life), I want to make sure that I do what I have been doing but with more intensity, more passion and more faith.
Why?
Because I am primarily concerned with the one and only event that will follow my physical death. It is what I often call the “audience of One.”
You may not believe it, but God will indeed meet each of us after our death. Then He will ask us to give an account of how we invested the life and resources He placed in our hands.
Mercifully, God gives us seasons and years so we can take stock of our lives, and when we come up short, we can start anew. This New Year, instead of just ringing out the old and ringing in the new, we all need to do an audit of our lives. We should determine, with God’s help, how we can re-up our purpose for living.
Remember, it is never too late with God.
So whatever the coming year brings, I am re-upping my commitment and my passion. If I know anything about God’s Word, I know He rejoices in our godly desire, and He will supernaturally empower it to become a reality.
Have a faith-full New Year!
Michael Youssef, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Leading the Way With Dr. Michael Youssef, a worldwide ministry that leads the way for people living in spiritual darkness to discover the light of Christ through the creative use of media and on-the-ground ministry teams. Youssef was born in Egypt.
