A world made for blessing
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,
Heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:29
Read Luke 2:21
It’s the first night of the new year. People around are hoping that a new page is turning. Could there be a new day, at work, or in their study program, a revived relationship, or a fresh quality in their old loves and their families? Hope almost re-emerges. And here I am, putting my hope for my renewal in Jesus and his claim upon me. I’m right back at the beginning of his life. I’m at his naming ceremony, ‘Jesus: God saves.’ That is how he’ll be known. I should remember that all year. And what do I make of the custom of his circumcision? It put him in the line of the 2000-year-old promise made to Abraham that through Abraham’s descendants the entire world would be blessed.[1] Jesus came to make that promise happen. So I begin this year as part of a world made for blessing.
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you sent him to begin something new and at the same time to fulfil a promise older than Abraham, older than the creation itself.[2] He came into a time remote from me, observing customs remote from mine. Yet in that he fulfilled your promise, and your promise was as wide as all the families of the earth. Therefore your promise includes me. It is in these strange ways that Jesus is mine. Mine! Through Christmas I have been singing, “Jesus Christ was born to save, calls you one and calls you all.” You have all this time been opening my way into your future. Call me into this new year. Call me to any new way for me that will fulfil your plan in my life. Align me with your purpose to bless the world.
[1]Genesis 17; Genesis 12:1—3
[2]Ephesians 1:3—4