Given December 31, 2013 

As the year 2013 comes to a close and 2014 looms ahead, let’s look at this like a book of our lives. Chapter 2013 is finished and we’re ready to turn the page to the next chapter. What is in this new chapter? Will it be a continuation of the last chapter? Will things that happened in previous chapters affect this new one? Is there something new and wonderful in store in chapter 2014? By the way, who is the author of this book of our lives? Let’s look at that.

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16). God’s eyes saw us before we were born and He made a plan for us; that’s pretty awesome. He wrote His plan down and it was set into motion on the day you were born. But there is a problem; the devil has a plan for us too, “to kill, steal, and destroy” us, (John 10:10). But didn’t Jesus defeat the devil when He rose from the dead? Yes He did but old Satan and his fallen angel crew are real good at deceiving and tricking us into believing his lies. So what about our book?

First, a thought about previous chapters. We all have made mistakes in our past lives that we can go back and read about in our book. Don’t do that! If we have confessed our mistakes, repented, and asked for forgiveness, those things are not in God’s book. Look what He said, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25). God erased your sins from His book, for His own sake, He doesn’t want to see us as that old sinful person. So why do we keep going back and reading our bad chapters? The only reference to those bad decisons may be a footnote at the bottom of the page to show us how that mistake was used by God, (if we let Him), to grow us and bring us to the next level of accomplishment. So it’s OK to look at the footnote for learning but not for guilt. He even said anything we lost or had stolen from us back then would be restored, (see Joel 2:25).

So, what will we read in chapter 2014? A lot of it is up to us. Will we follow what God has already written or will we write our own life version? I’m not sure what God’s version for me is but I read from His book that it’s pretty good. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11). So let’s humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and turn away from evil, (see 2 Chronicles 7:14), and chapter 2014 will be one to remember. Let’s not just copy and paste chapter 2013 but let’s allow God’s writing to come to pass. And you know, we’re almost to the end of this book.