Hi, my name is Bobby Kumari and I am from Living in Light and I would just love to welcome you to God Today. I pray that you are having a really blessed day and that you just feel the closeness of the Lord and the truth of His victory, knowing that you are a winner. You know, you are destined to win. You are operating from a place of victory to a place of victory because of the One that’s living on the inside of you.
What I’d like to share about today super briefly is the beauty of fresh starts. Now, when I consider how quickly this year is going by, and actually how every year just flies by and I consider how long ago January was. I’m sure that there are so many people whose New Year’s resolutions seem like distant memories. If you are someone who actually is still running strong with your New Year’s resolution, then, oh my God, that is amazing! Not everyone is, but the incredible thing about being a child of God and having resurrection power on the inside of us and having God abiding in us is that we get to have a fresh start anytime. He’s continuously doing new things in our lives.
What I actually love about Isaiah 43:18-19 is that God actually shows us how to posture ourselves when that new thing is coming. When he’s doing something new in our lives, how should we navigate through that transition? And so I’m going to read that out for us from the amplified classic version. It says, “Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” I actually meditated on this and shared it with my youth group at the beginning of the year because there was just such a beautiful strategy in there for us all to follow as we stepped into the new.
Firstly, I love how God is saying to us through the prophet Isaiah, forget the past, don’t romanticize the past, don’t earnestly remember the things that have now gone. Don’t consider the things of the old. Don’t waste time focusing on the former things. Behold, I am doing a new thing. So firstly, God says don’t glamorize or wish for the past or focus on the past. But behold, because I’m doing a new thing. Behold, look at Me, gaze at Me, fix your eyes on Me because I’m doing a new thing it’s springing forth. So God’s saying to us, not only does He not want us to focus on the former of things, but to keep our eyes fixed on Him as the new thing that He is doing Springs forth.
Then He asks this question, do you not perceive it? And this term “perceive it”, it speaks of giving heed, to really knowing, paying attention, to becoming aware of. Oftentimes when we’re in transition, we focus a lot on what isn’t happening instead of actually seeing and gazing and perceiving and knowing, and sensing and becoming aware of what God is doing.
We find God really encouraging us and asking us, can you not see what I’m doing? I mean really, really, really, really see. We do that by not focusing on the past. We do that by keeping our eyes fixed on Him and becoming aware of the new that He’s doing instead of fixating on what he potentially isn’t doing.
Which leads us on nicely to the fourth point, which is this reassurance from Him that I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. He gives us that confidence. He gives us that assurance that when I’m doing this new thing, it might look like you’re in the desert. It might look like you’re in the wilderness, but trust Me, I am making a way. I am actually breaking through those places and doing the impossible. Not only does He guide us on what our posture should be, not only does He show us where to look, but He also safeguards us against those attacks and reminds us that I have got you. I am doing something new and I will bring it to fruition.
If you’re in a journey of transition right now, trust Him, meditate on Isaiah 43:18-19. I pray that you would find such fresh encouragement and really abide in these timeless truths that we have in the Word. That not only cause us to know that personhood of Jesus in the most beautiful way, but these times truths become the very house that we abide in, the beautiful foundations upon which we live our lives, the strategies that guide us in every single season.
I just bless that new thing that God is doing in each and every one of us. And I’m actually just going to pray that over us, “Lord Jesus. I just thank You for all the new things that You are doing in our lives. I pray God, just even in this moment for a fresh grace and a fresh partnership for each one of us to partner with the new thing that you are doing, that we would forget the past that we would no longer earnestly seek the former things, but that we would behold You as that new thing that you are bringing springs forth, that we would choose to perceive it, that we would choose to become aware of it, not focusing on what isn’t happening, but actually discerning and sensing and seeing that which is happening, and that we will trust You that even when it looks like that we may still be in the wilderness or that thing means never come, but that we will trust that You are making a way in the desert and that You are doing the impossible and You are perfecting all that concerns us, in Jesus name I pray, amen.