January 1, 2020 • Life for Leaders
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
Gracious God, today is New Year’s Day. Today we flip the calendar, from 2019 to 2020. Some of us will make New Year’s resolutions, promising to do better in the days ahead. And some of us might actually keep these promises . . . for a few days, anyway.
But our hearts long for more than just a new year, a new date, or some new resolutions. Our world can feel so old, so caught in injustice, so wracked by violence, so wounded by poverty, so tainted by evil.
But it’s not just our world that needs to be made new. We need this. We yearn for renewal in mind, heart, body, and spirit. We want to leave behind our sin and shame. We need you to make us new, Lord!
Thus, on this first day of the new year, we hold tight to the promise of 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Yes, Lord, let us experience your new creation. Let the newness of your justice and peace cover the earth. Make my heart new. Fill me with new confidence, new trust, new love.
O God, a year from now when I look back at 2020, may I be able to say: Yes, I have experienced your new creation, however imperfectly. Yes, I have been made new through your grace in Jesus Christ! Amen.
Explore more at The High Calling archive, hosted by the Theology of Work Project:
Keeping Christmas Well: Taste the New Creation
Dr. Mark D. Roberts is a Senior Strategist for Fuller’s Max De Pree Center for Leadership, where he focuses on the spiritual development and thriving of leaders. He is the principal writer of the daily devotional, Life for Leaders, and the founder of the De Pree Center’s Flourishing in the Third Third of Life Initiative. Previously, Mark was the Executive Director of the De Pree Center, the lead pastor of a church in Southern California, and the Senior Director of Laity Lodge in Texas. He has written eight books, dozens of articles, and over 2,500 devotions that help people discover the difference God makes in their daily life and leadership. With a Ph.D. in New Testament from Harvard, Mark teaches at Fuller Seminary, most recently in his D.Min. cohort on “Faith, Work, Economics, and Vocation.” Mark is married to Linda, a marriage and family counselor, spiritual director, and executive coach. Their two grown children are educators on the high school and college level.
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