I cannot believe that 2012 has
flown by so quickly. It feels like yesterday that I wrote the
devotion with a message for 2012. There were so many uncertainties
then, so many doom prophets doing the round, so many people
predicting the end of the world at 21 December 2012. But that also
came and went. This increased my faith even more, our God is in
control, and no doom prophet or prediction! Ultimately it is all
about Him. He is the One leading the way and that excites me. He
has a Plan for our world and for each one of us and that makes me
smile. That gives me peace and that gives me hope. Hope that God is
in control, hope that He will lead the way and hope that there is a
better future for us all. I can feel the excitement welling up in
me. Each year we need to walk according to this excitement. We need
to walk with a spring in our step, we need to walk like Jesus
did.
On Christmas morning Dr Stephan
Joubert brought a powerful message echoing this. He said that the
people in Jesus' day believed that 'gods' had a different way of
walking when they made their way down to their 'subjects' on earth.
They walked like 'gods', like they were more noble than everyone
else. And when Jesus came, they noticed His walk immediately. He
was like a 'god' to them, they saw that He was different. But
unlike their 'gods', He didn't deem Himself more important than all
the others, He was one of them, a suffering Servant to them, even
though He was distinctly different. He walked with dignity, He
walked with compassion and He walked with love. He redefined the
word 'love'. And we as Christians need to imitate His walk. We are
after all His Body on earth, we represent Him and we need to show a
lost world the walk of Christ. We need to show them that someone do
care, we need to show them that there is hope after all and most
importantly we need to show them His love. That should be our
mission for 2013 and that is the Father's heart for each one of us.
Even if 2013 doesn't deliver something spectacular for you, if you
walk the walk of Jesus, you did more than enough and our Father is
very pleased with you. The King of the Universe will smile on you
and say "Well done, you good and faithful son." What more can we
ask for?
I would like to leave you with the
chorus of the song 'The motions' sung by Matthew West:
"I don't want to go through the
motions, I don't want to go one more day without Your all consuming
passion inside of me, I don't want to go through my life asking,
what if I had given everything, instead of going through the
motions."
And I would like to challenge you
this year, to give everything you have, to walk like Jesus did with
His all consuming passion inside of you. Don't simply go through
the motions, but make a difference right there where you are and
2013 will be a year full of peace, hope and love!
Father, we don't want to simply go
through the motions anymore, we want to be like Jesus and present
Him to the world. We know we can't do this in our own strength, but
thank you for Your Holy Spirit inside of us leading the way. Thank
you for Jesus and His all consuming passion and thank you for being
with us. With You by our side, we can do anything. We love You.
Amen