What doth hinder me?

No doubt over the past few days or even weeks as we have drawn to the close of another year, millions of people have begun to consider making a change in their current lifestyle. We often refer to it as a New Year Resolution. We resolve to change our eating habits, balance our lifestyle, spend more time with family, becoming more organized, give up bad habits, pray more and so on. 

Certainly, this time of year we give more thought and attention to course corrections, as I would call them. However, from a Biblical perspective, scripture does not encourage us to wait for a new day or a certain time before we make a fresh start with God. As a matter of fact, nowhere does the scripture ever encourage us to wait to make changes but rather it urges us to immediately receive what God has for us.  For example, in Luke 19:9 Jesus speaks to Zacchaeus and says, “This day salvation has come to your house.” Another passage from the book of Psalms (Psalm 118:24) tells us “This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Emphasizing that we seize the moment and not waste opportunities. 

However, my personal favorite example from scripture that really shows us the importance of taking advantage of the moment and making a new start right now is found in the book of Acts. If we read the 8^th chapter of Acts, we find the Apostle Phillip was directed by an Angel to travel to a certain city. In his travels, he meets an Ethiopian Eunuch who was reading from the Old Testament. When Phillip appeared to him, he quickly realized that this man was struggling to understand the scriptures.  Phillip proceeded to expound and explain the scriptures to the Eunuch teaching him from the Old Testament how Christ was prophesized to come and die for the sins of the world. Following this teaching, we find in the next scripture a beautiful example of how we should respond to the call of God.

Acts 8:36, And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” 

Scripture tells us right there in the river, he was baptized and began a new walk with the Lord. 

As we close out another year and begin a new one, many people will spend time reflecting on the past and plan to set a date to begin to make a lifestyle change. For many, New Year’s inspires change and gives hope that mistakes and failures of yesterday can be corrected at the turn of the last page of the calendar. However, I would challenge us today to just act. I propose this question, what doth hinder you? Actions today will always outweigh even our best laid plans. The Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creature:  old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. One of the wonderful blessings of serving the Lord is that His mercies are new every morning! 

There are many occurrences in the Bible that let us know that today is our most important day.  As quoted earlier, “This is the day that the Lord has made…” “Today is the day of salvation”. In fact, we find in the Word of God that most every important decision made, was made in the moment when truth was revealed. So, the point of this is…if you desire to grow closer to God this year, you don’t necessarily need a Bible reading planner, you just need to break open the Bread of Life. If you desire greater communication, develop a consistent prayer life. If you desire to become a new creature in Christ, you must do away with the old (carnal) things of yesterday. Why wait until a specific date to do the things we know to do “right now”!