Dear Christian friends:

A little boy told his mother, "I can't get up until I see Jesus' face." He meant that he was afraid to get up in the dark bedroom until it was light and he could see the picture of Jesus hanging on his bedroom wall.

The little boy had the right idea. He didn't want to begin his day without Jesus. So you and I ought to also feel afraid without Jesus. We ought to feel afraid to begin the New Year without him.


Let us close the old year in His name. Really, this is the only way we can close it and have peace and be satisfied with it. Our failures and sins will bother us too much if we don't. Think of some of your failures: lack of trust in God and giving up to quickly, dartball, Sunday School, Church, Choir. This is a common fault of people. "Our God was too small." "God is Dead". Not really means our faith is too small and our faith was dead. Jesus said in Matthew 17:20, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

So we must close out the old year in Jesus' name asking Him to forgive our sins. His name means Savior. Think of your successes. Did it make you proud? Did you thank God and praise God? New job? Raise? New baby? New car or home?

Let us also open the New Year in Jesus' name. If we don't we will be either too proud or too afraid of the future. We don't know what will happen to our dear ones in 1966. War? Floods? Auto accident? Tornado? Lose Job? Get sick? Die? Many questions and no answers. We can't prophecy. And so we are afraid, and we feel sin and guilt.

But if we begin in Jesus' name with faith and trust in Him that God loves and forgives us in His name that whatever we ask in His name God will give us. Because by faith in His name we become and remain His dear children.

In Jesus' name we know God loves us and that we do not walk alone into the New Year.

Amen.