Heart to Heart
It’s New Year’s Eve day, and everyone is gearing up to bring in 2025. Businesses are closing early, people are grabbing a few last-minute items, and both hearts & minds are looking to the future. We all start 2025 with a blank sheet, and yet expectation. God knows what He wants to do in the coming year. What we can be certain of, is that He has plans that are already in motion. The only question will be if we join Him, in what He’s up to.
As a church, I believe God is inviting us to take Him at His Word. In Isaiah 43:19, after having assured His people of His great love (I’ve redeemed you) and that He will see us through whatever troubles and challenges come our way, the LORD says “Behold (look hard, see with your eyes of faith), I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?” Think back to the last year, and how many new expressions of God’s mercy & grace we experienced as life unfolded. Is there any doubt that He’s up to something new in 2025?
The LORD declares “I am making a way in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” That “way” is found in Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Our first priority is to know Him more & more, and to follow all that He has taught us. That’s what it means to be a Christ follower. Flowing water in a parched desert, speaks of the empowering of the Holy Spirit, from whom streams of abundance flow. In the south, they long to see the monsoon rains, that help to bring new life to the desert. How might God by His Spirit be working in new ways this coming year, to send refreshing showers of His Spirit to our hearts, in order to cause new growth in the lives of His people & Church?
What is God stirring within you, as you look to Him and anticipate 2025?
This year, I’ve been drawn to the word “Excelsior” and how it’s meaning will help shape my life focus. Stan Lee, the Marvel comics publisher who left behind the iconic comic heroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, often signed off with the word “Excelsior.” In 2010, he tweeted that the word meant “upward and onward to greater glory.” That was Lee’s wish for his readers.
I share my personal goal, with the wish that you might make it yours. I’m pursuing “Excelsior 3:14” to gain greater glory in 2025. But that glory has nothing to do with comic superheroes or personal accolades. Version 3:14 points me to what the apostle Paul declares in Philippians, chapter 3 – “I press on toward the goal to win the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” v.14. I want to grow deeper in the grace & knowledge of Jesus. More of Him and less of me. I’m determined to keep running my race, onward & upward, to reach the greater glory of reaching heaven’s gates and spending eternity with Jesus.
That’s my wish for each of you, in our beloved FAC family. May your 2025 lead upward and onward, to the greater praise & glory of God, as together we embrace the new things He is doing, and individually serve our neighbors & community, out of the Spirit’s fulness.
<>< Excelsior 3:14, Adriaan & Diana