Happy New Year

http://www.wordcalendar.org/happy-new-year-2013-wallpaper-around-the-world.html

By the time you read this we may be in the year 2013. 2012 with all its spectacular events will have passed. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics, and the Paralympics will be fading into history as we start the New Year. Are you looking forward to 2013? Are you optimistic of what this year may bring? Some may be starting a new job, with prospects of a whole new career. Some may be looking forward to their wedding, planning, and preparing for the “big day”. Others may still be looking for a job, any job, while others are starting afresh after the failure of their relationship. However, one thing affects us all and that is summarized in a well-worn phrase, “time flies”. Sorry for mentioning it but there are just 360 days to Christmas 2013!

Once the holiday period is over and we start back to work the daily/weekly routine carries us ever onward and we don’t notice the passage of time. The things that we planned to do, and to which we set a deadline for completion, are suddenly upon us – incomplete and pressing! The promises we made we realize we haven’t kept. Where has the time gone?

This is a difficulty that relates not just to our home life and our work life, but also to our spiritual life. Have we thought about what lies beyond time? As we pass through death into eternity, have we made any preparation or plan for “what next”? It is one thing to add such things to our resolutions for the year, but are we really serious about getting right with God and preparing to meet Him. The Bible bids us all to “prepare to meet thy God”. Sadly, many people get so caught up in the routines of life that they give it no thought at all. Perhaps they hope that they will have time later. At the end of life, perhaps, they’ll have time then to sort things out. Yet in the Christmas message there is news that God loves us all, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die as a sacrifice for sin, and that the Lord Jesus Christ can be our Saviour today.

Why put off a decision about eternity? Get right with God through a confession of your sin and faith in His Son. Enjoy His peace in your heart, whatever 2013 may bring!

“This was never meant to happen”



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20657114

‘It was a prank . . . we couldn’t foresee what would happen’. These are the words of the Australian DJs interviewed after their call to a London Hospital resulted in the suicide of a nurse. Shortly after the announcement of the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a child, she was taken into hospital in London suffering from acute sickness brought on by the pregnancy. Whilst the Duchess was in the care of the hospital the two DJs were involved in making a telephone call to that hospital, posing as members of the Royal family. For whatever reason, the call was not identified as ‘a prank’ and was directed through to the suite where the Duchess was staying. The nurse who then answered and provided information to the callers did not realize that the call was a hoax. Later, she was so upset by the discovery of the hoax that she committed suicide.

Something that was conceived and carried out as ‘a laugh’ went horribly wrong. Something that should never have got as far as it did would seem to have contributed to the death of an experienced and dedicated nurse. Like our readers, we would offer sympathy to those who have been badly affected by this tragic turn of events.

I suppose we can all look back to events in our lives when ‘if only’ we had known how things would turn out we would never had set out on the pathway that we did. ‘If only’ can be the most tragic words it is possible to utter. We didn’t realize. We hadn’t anticipated. We didn’t think.

However, the Bible has left important facts on record. We might not have read those facts. We might be ignorant of what it states, but the warning is there. God says, ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die’. We cannot say ‘if only I had known’. God has told us of the consequences of our mistakes, our sins. If we continue on that chosen pathway of life we will be separated from God forever – spiritual death! But the remarkable thing about God is that He is willing to forgive, and to deal with the problem of our sin. ‘God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’. Through faith in Christ and His death on the cross we can be forgiven and brought into peace with God. What about you? Don’t be one who will forever regret, ‘if only . . .’