IT’S JUST ABOUT GONE
The New Year begins with a bang! Fireworks! Football! Food! Celebration! It’s 2012. A fresh new year is ahead of us. What will we do? What will we accomplish? Resolutions! We make them only to break them within twenty four hours. Now it is December and the year is gone. Where did it go? As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, “You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.”
At the Lithia Springs congregation we had our highs and lows during 2012. We were deeply saddened at the sudden death of two of our members, Matthew Austin and Tristin Hall. We cried, prayed and endeavored to comfort these families and one another (1 Thess. 4:18). We had our highs with two wonderful gospel meetings, a great VBS, outstanding Youth Lectureship and high attendance on many Sunday’s. We prayed with Stephen Higley as he departed for a new life in New Zealand (Stephen is now married to Hannah Smith).
Folks, it’s gone! We have two things left from 2012. The results of our work and the memories. Someone said, “Today is first day of the rest of your life.” Well, that is true and it works down at church too. The future is ahead. Here is how Paul expressed it to the Philippians:
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).
In Exodus, chapter thirty five through forty, the Children of Israel are instructed by God to build the Tabernacle. God had given those instructions to Moses and in chapter thirty five he begins to carry them out. They bring offerings and work begins. When you come to chapter forty here is what the Bible says, “And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work” (Ex. 40:33). When you continue reading in verse thirty four you find that the cloud covered the tabernacle and “The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (vs. 34). Then in verse thirty six the Bible reads, “And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys” (Ex. 40:36).
As Christians, as congregations the year is gone, the election is over the months have fallen away. We now must move forward with God guiding and directing us, “THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WENT ONWARD IN ALL THEIR JOURNEYS.” Let us all go onward!
Larry