Faithbase

Did you know that New Year resolutions go back to Babylonian time? We're talking 3,000 years ago. They welcomed the new year with a week-long celebration. They were trying to orchestrate a new life in the occasion. Then Julius Caesar, in 45 BC, started a new calendar of 12 months with the deity Janus at the very beginning, from which we get January. And this god had two faces, one looking toward the future and the one looking toward the past. So as we look ourselves at our past, are we learning anything that we can project in the future? Or do we think that we have all sorts of time and therefore we are risking wasting our lives with the lie of tomorrow I will get to it. Now the younger generation is the one that is making most of the goal settings right now. And maybe because the older generation has given up, is getting tired. But remember, however, that if you do not aim for something, you will always miss the mark. And I would like to show you something that I did last year. And actually, for the occasion, I put on the same shirt. And this is about a person that was missing the mark in his life. And he had a chance, though, to rectify it. I will sketch you in five minutes. Dear friends, I missed you last week, but I hope you had a fantastic time with family and friends. And during this period, believe it or not, for the very first time, I saw Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens. I'm sure that a lot of you have seen that before. I think the latest one was 2009 with James Carey. But the interesting story is, most of you know, there is this stingy man, Scrooge, who does not believe in Christmas. Think of Christmas as a waste of time, waste of money. He doesn't enjoy the fruits of his labor. He doesn't enjoy relationship. And one night, he's visited by three different spirits. The spirit of the past, the spirit of the present, and the spirit of the future. And I wanted to focus on the last one, the spirit of the future, because there are some simple truths that came out from some of the statements that were made. So, the spirit takes Scrooge in a graveyard, and he's pointed to a particular grave. And I think that Scrooge has a premonition that probably his name will be written on that epitaph. And so, what he's asking is, are these shadow of things that will be or things that may be? Interesting question, because the first one is unchangeable. That is a destiny that cannot be changed. The second one offers a glimpse of hope. So, finally, he's at the point that he's becoming desperate, where before he was kind of mocking all those spirits. Now, he is treating this seriously because he's looking at his own life or the end of his life. And then what does he say? He says, why show me all this if I am past all hope? So, he's pleading with the spirit for some kind of a change in time before it's too late. And then he says, tell me, and I will sponge the name from the epitaph, the name from the stone, and then goes on to say, have mercy on me, spare me. Very, very interesting, and actually reminded me of a traumatic dream I had many years ago, very traumatic dream, similar to this in a way, because I was living in sin, deliberately living in sin, and finally, one night I dreamt Mr. Death coming out of the bathtub while I was brushing my teeth, pleasant man, blonde blue eyes, and he said, Pepo, your time is up, and you're coming with me to hell for eternity. And it just freaked me out. I remember just yelling in the dream, Lord, and I woke up yelling, Lord, because I thought in the dream that that was it. Time was over. I couldn't plead for any more time, for repentance, for anything else. It was over, and the sentence was already deliberated. I was stuck for eternity. There was nothing I could have done to change it, and truly created such an anxiety on me that, as I said, I woke up yelling, yelling the Lord's name. So not too many of us are really privileged, I would say, to have a situation like this, but in the case of Scrooge, again, he has this particular chance to re-evaluate life and make a change. This reminds me of the scripture in 2 Corinthians 5 17 that states, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold the old has passed and the new has come. Now Scrooge became a new person. Why? Because he saw what the accumulation of bad choices would have led him towards, and he had a chance, actually, to make a change, an active change in his life. And I think in this climate of new year resolution, new goals, new objectives that we're setting, and most of them actually unfortunately fade within the first five to six weeks, I would just give you one challenge, just one challenge. What is that one thing that you know is bringing friction, division, separation between you and your Maker? If you don't have any, great, but ponder your life. You know, look at the past year and look at something that was repetitive and say, no, Lord, this one thing I know I need to get rid of. And make an active commitment to say, Lord, I will want to change it. I need your help to change it, but I want to put all the energy, the willingness, the determination that I have to make a change while there is still time. So, guys and gals, while there is still time, let's work not at a new year resolution, but on a new life resolution. We don't know how much time we have, so let's live every day as if it was the last day on earth. I'm wishing you a fantastic 2024 with things perhaps they have never done before. Catch you next week. Ciao!