Praying To Use The Opportunities As We Enter The New Month

 Welcome to September 2021.  Can you believe we’re into this new month.  The traditional summer months of here of July and August are gone for this year and now we are full swing into “getting ready for the new season” that September brings – whatever that will be. 

Families are in the stores buying new clothes and school supplies with schools back in session on the 7^th – less than a week from now. 

Lots of questions at the moment of what that should look like with the Delta variant around and kids up to 6^th grade not able to be vaccinated.  Opinions back and forth on mask mandates and required vaccination for staff etc.  Although we are not “out of the woods yet” in terms of the virus, parents are being reassured on the news on a regular basis that things are new and different than they were when school was beginning last year because of lessons learned and the high percentage of British Columbians who are currently vaccinated.

We know that here in British Columbia we will have a vaccination card program for everyone starting up in the next couple of weeks.  To access a variety of indoor services and functions we will need to show proof of vaccination.  Lots of stories on the new these days of those who don’t like the idea even though polls tell us that ore than 70% of us are happy about the idea.

A week after the vaccination card program begins we will have a federal election so we will have a new look in parliament in Ottawa – not sure if we’ll have the same prime minister or a new one but certainly no matter who wins the election we will have a new program with new leaders in some or all areas.

God’s Word encourages us to look ahead, not because we can depend so much on our circumstances but because we can depend on what God is doing – the new things He is bringing.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  Isaiah 43:18-19

It’s what is new inside us that counts much more than what is now in the circumstances that surround us.  The Bible tells us:

If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!  2 Corinthians 5:17

Thank You God for what Jesus did  for us on the cross by taking our sin and our punishment for it and providing new life with God for us.  We want to live in that new life today trusting that when we turn from our independent and sinful ways that You really do give us that new life.  The old goes and the new comes. 

Your Word encourages us to fully enter into this new life when it says:

Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.  Colossians 3:9-11

We do want to strip off everything that is touched by our old life with You, God.  We want to leave behind personal character defects like lying and fear and anger.  We also want to let go of those wider issues like prejudice and pride and actually anything, no matter what it represents of current culture, that is uncouth, uncivilized, or exclusionary. 

Help us today to identify with Your new way of making us people with one another, each filled with dignity and grace – we want to live today, “in Christ.”  Help us to not just want this but to allow Your Holy Spirit to actually make that life rich and full in every part of who we are and what we do.

We welcome the new today as we enter into this new month of September.  Amen