The Father's Blessing for the New Year

by Brigid Smithers

Do you know your Father's blessing?

“This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

These well-known words were spoken to Jesus by His Father, God, after John baptised Him in the river Jordan. They were words of approval from Father to Son. We all need our father's approval, and maybe Jesus did too. Some people spend their whole life trying to please their earthly father, if he has never shown them his approval, or affirmed them in a meaningful way. 

And these words were spoken, as far as we know, before Jesus had said a word in public or done any works of healing  or any miraculous signs. They are words of a lover, ‘I love you just for  being you’.

And the amazing thing is, God says these words to us too, to you and to me,  in these tumultuous and uncertain times, and at the beginning of a new year. He loves us just because He created us and approves of the work of His hands. All we have to do is believe  those words, even though voices around us tell us we are worthless, undeserving, or that we have to work harder to prove ourselves to Him. They did that to Jesus, too!

So let us go into 2021, knowing that our heavenly Father, our creator, Lord of heaven and earth, loves us, and believes in us, even before we have spoken a word, or done anything to ‘deserve’  it. Let us listen to His voice of love, receive it, - and then go out to love the people  He puts across our path, and walk in the authority that He gives us.
 
“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge,  - that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  
Ephesians  3:17-19

HAPPY NEW YEAR!