Tag: peace

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Four Blessings to Ask God For in 2025

This article first appeared at Small Town Summits Articles.

Father, as we sail out upon the unknown waters of 2025, we are reminded of past years that held joys and trials and we are a bit weary. It could be a year of smooth sailing and joy that easily points us to you, the giver of all good things (James 1:17). But life in this fallen world is so uncertain. What life-changing squalls could hit with hardly a moment’s notice?

Jesus, we know that you are our captain and that you are Lord over the storms. So, with you in our boat, we cry out to you, asking you to work in our lives, our church and our family in 2025.

We ask these things with boldness, knowing that the same Jesus who heard the cries of the disciples and asked where their faith is hears us today (Romans 8:34). Jesus, we believe—help our unbelief (Mark 9:24)! We serve you in faith, believing that you not only exist, but that you reward those who earnestly seek you (Hebrews 11:6). Lord, may you be our reward as we seek you today and look ahead to 2025.

We ask for four blessings from your hand in 2025—hope, peace, joy, and to see Jesus’s glory.

Give Us Hope

Give us hope that you are working all things for our good (Romans 8:28). Give us hope that you are forming us to look more like Jesus even though we get so impatient with our progress in sanctification sometimes (Romans 8:29).

Give us hope that the Word is doing its work in other church member’s lives and that you are at work in our community even when we can’t see it (Mark 4:26-29). Give us hope that you will never abandon your church (Matthew 16:18) and that you will use us, but that gospel ministry is not reliant upon us (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Give us hope that you are cheering my spouse and I on each time that we move towards each other (Song of Solomon 5:1b). Give us hope that you are working in my spouse’s heart and life and that you are forming his or her character into a beautiful work of art that belongs to you (Ephesians 2:10). Give us hope that you hold each of my children in your hands and that no one can snatch them out of your hands (John 10:28-29).

Give us hope that you can do more than we can ask for or imagine in our walk with you, in our church, and in our family in 2025 (Ephesians 3:20-21)!

Give Us Peace

Give us peace, knowing that we can sleep because you never sleep, always watching your own (Psalm 121:3-4). Give us peace as we navigate our own doubts and fears (Matthew 10:31). Give us peace that can only be found in knowing you personally, as we pursue you even more than we have in past years (Psalm 119:10).

Give our church peace in conflict that may arise in 2025, and give us a heart to seek the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). Give us peace as we navigate the complexity of being believers in today’s world (2 Corinthians 11:28). Give our church a greater measure of the peace that comes from resting in Jesus (John 14:27).

Give my spouse and I peace if financial or health or extended family situations arise this year that add stress to our marriage (Isaiah 26:3). Give our home peace and may our children and grandchildren grow in enjoying their relationships with each other (Psalm 133:1). Give our children your spiritual protection from the evil one, so that they can experience the peace that comes from walking with you in a tumultuous world (John 17:15).

Give Us Joy

Give us joy, knowing that joy is always available in Jesus regardless of what circumstances may come in 2025 (John 15:11, 16:20). Give us your joy in the happy days, and the eyes to see the world as a place where your beauty and power are constantly on display (Psalm 24:1). Give us joy in trials, knowing that you have not abandoned us and are producing Christ-like character in us (James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3-5).

Give our church joy so that when unbelievers visit, they will want this joy that the world cannot offer (Luke 2:10). Give our church joy that is not surface-deep but rather that is deep like a glacier, because it is joy in God (2 Corinthians 1:24). Give our church joy that is Spirit-produced as we worship the living God on Sunday mornings together (Psalms 4:7).

Give us joy in our marriages, as we seek to enjoy life with the spouse you have given us (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Give our spouses joy in their day-to-day responsibilities and in their ministry opportunities (Romans 15:13). Give our children joy through spiritual tastebuds that savor Jesus rather than sin (Psalm 16:11).

Give Us Jesus’s Glory

In the same way that Moses did not want to move into the Promised Land without viewing your glory (Exodus 33:14-18), we don’t want to move into 2025 without a fresh view of Jesus’s glory!

Give us Jesus’s glory in our times of Bible reading and prayer in 2025, so that we can take a spiritual drink and be satisfied (John 7:37-39). Give us Jesus’s glory through seeing your salvation in our personal witnessing with friends and community members (Luke 5:25).

Give our church a view of Jesus’s glory that is so breathtaking that they will want to run from sin (1 Peter 1:13-16). Give our church the focus that church is about Jesus’s glory, not their preferences or ease (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Give our church such a sense of Jesus’s glory on Sunday mornings that they will long for the next time of worship together (2 John 1:12).

Give our families a view of Jesus’s glory that comes from having a privileged front-row seat to your work in so many lives (Acts 2:43). Give our children Jesus’s glory so that they have mountain-top spiritual experiences, but also we ask that when they come down from them that they will have eyes for Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).

Father, we recognize that we don’t deserve any blessing from you. But we also know that you love to give good gifts to your children (Matthew 7:11). So, we are asking you today to give us, our family, and our church four things in 2025: give us hope, give us peace, give us joy, and give us Jesus’s glory!

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A Thrill of Hope, the Weary World Rejoices!

This article will be featured in the December 25, 2020 edition of The Manchester Journal, our local paper.

You don’t need me to tell you that 2020 has been a year that has made us weary. Whether your weariness is social, economic, physical, relational, job-related, screen-related, or a combination of all of these and other reasons, “wearisome” is probably an apt description of your 2020. Experts talk about “pandemic fatigue,” but we might not even read their articles because we are fatigued of thinking about fatigue. While I was writing this article, a news notification popped up, “Can you get coronavirus from Christmas cards?” Mercifully, the basic answer is no, but one year ago who would have ever thought we would have this kind of low-grade stress constantly in the back of our minds? However you are celebrating Christmas this year, you and I are bringing all of that into this holiday season. In the midst of this weariness, however, there is one Christmas carol line that keeps coming back to my mind: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices!”

This line from O Holy Night is talking about a hope that is just as true and vibrant today as it was the night that Christ was born. The Bible tells us that two of the reasons that Christ came were to bring hope through personal peace today, and forever peace in heaven. We get wearied by our lack of personal peace. We wonder if there is a God who cares. We wonder if anything that happened in Bible times has anything to do with us today. Christmas reminds us that God cares, and God acts for us—today. The Gospel of Matthew explains the relevance of an ancient prophecy, written 700 years before Jesus in the book of Isaiah: “‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).”

The reason that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth is because we believe what the Bible teaches, that it marks the entrance of God into the world in human flesh. Jesus entered into our suffering world, and after living a perfect life of love, died on the cross at the time the Passover lambs were being sacrificed, as “The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) The Bible explains in Romans 5:1 why this matters today, after talking about Jesus’s death and resurrection:  “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the gift of God to all who will receive it: our sins are paid for and we are accepted by God as our father. Because of Jesus we can live life knowing that God is for us and with us no matter what kind of suffering or what kind of year we are walking through.

But the message of Christmas doesn’t end with an earth that is so susceptible to viruses and suffering and sin. The thrill of hope isn’t just for now. The weary world rejoices because one day it will be made new. We celebrate Jesus’s first advent, his first coming, now, but the Bible promises that one day, he will come to earth again—his second advent. He will make all things new and create a new heaven and new earth where we will be safe from sin, and suffering, and death. This is God’s Christmas gift to us, encapsulated in the memorable words of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

On Christmas Eve in 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, an unarmed French soldier jumped out of the trenches, walked onto the battlefield, and sang the first line from O Holy Night in French. After he sang all three verses, a German soldier emerged and sang a popular German carol, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” The story says that both sides then joined together in singing an Austrian carol. The battle stopped for the next 24 hours in honor of Christmas Day. Temporary peace was initiated by O Holy Night.

Wouldn’t it seem too good to be true if peace were initiated not just for 24 hours but for today and for eternity? The gospel always sounds like the best news you’ve ever heard once you understand it. That is the truth Christians celebrate at Christmas, that Jesus came to bring personal peace today, and forever peace in heaven. That is the best reason for a thrill of hope, and for a weary world to rejoice. In the weariness of 2020, may you find peace in Christ this Christmas.

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