Well, it’s a new year. I suppose millions are celebrating the passing of 2025 and the advent of 2026. With so many life lessons learned behind us and untold adventures over the horizon, who can say what the future has in store! Woo hoo – I’m excited, how about you?
As I think about this, I realize that my excitement changes as I get older and wiser. I mean, without Christ first in my life, what would I really have to be excited about? Nothing, to be blunt. He’s all that matters if you get right down to it. So, I guess you could say that my excitement about the new year becomes increasingly dependent on my relationship with my Lord and Savior, year over year. That’s a great future to think about because His blessings are infinite. So, 2026 means even greater blessings than 2025, which has been chock full!
For example, my church family is tighter than ever. Understandably, too, since the Holy Spirit had me teach a 30-Part series on Commitment, Responsibility, and a Accountability To the Local Church as a parenthetical study to our primary course of study on the Book of Hebrews, started way back on January 8, 2023. We’re just about to close out Chapter 11 in that incredibly rich book. What a tremendously edifying journey 2025 has been for North Christian Church. I suspect 2026 will be even more fruitful since God’s blessings are cumulative.
My friends, 2026 is exciting because we worship a gracious, faithful, loving God!
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
– Jeremiah 29:11-13
I’m confident some people will look to 2026 with anxiety in their hearts, unsure of what it has in store for them. But not me, and I hope the same for you. If our study of the Book of Hebrews has taught us anything, it’s that “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith opens every door, it delivers us from every evil, and it paves the way for exciting days ahead, as in, “I wonder what the good Lord will show me today?” May I echo the apostles in Luke 17:5 who said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
– Isaiah 40:28-31
If there’s one thing we can bank on, it’s God’s faithfulness towards His own.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
– Lamentations 3:21-26
Life is good. In fact, it gets better every year! So, there’s absolutely no reason why we children of God shouldn’t expect 2026 to be anything but even more blessed than 2025. How exciting is that and how wonderful is it that our Guarantor is God?
God bless you this new year.
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins