Focus: A Fresh Start

Text: Isa.43:19

"Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."

Every new year is a sacred opportunity afforded us by God to start afresh, to make amends for our wrongs, to focus on life's main things, and to lead a life that is well-pleasing to God.

God says, "I will do a new thing." This is more than a paradigm shift; it is a new paradigm. It is a new thing in terms of kind, quality or character, not in terms of quantity, number or that which is recent in time. God is moving away from the usual to the unusual. God is initiating the peculiar and manifesting the unique. God is invading the mundane with the sublime, introducing the heavenly life into the earthly realm, and impacting the immediate with the ultimate. God makes a way in the desert and causes rivers to spring up in a dry land.

Think of the areas you need to start afresh, and of things you need to improve or do better. Find the things you are leaving undone and start doing. This brand new year affords you the opportunity to do things differently.

When the Lord Jesus Christ instructed Peter to launch his net into the DEEP, He was simply telling him to start afresh, and more than that, to do it differently than before. Stop scratching the surface! Get beyond the periphery this time! In John 21, the Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples, "Cast your net on the RIGHT SIDE." That's like saying, 'Move from your left side to your right.' Peter followed the instruction and achieved success right where he recorded failure the last time. The disciples also obeyed and caught great number of fish right where they once struggled to no avail. 

So it's not enough to start afresh, but to start afresh by doing things differently.

You have to go deep and move from left to right. Take radical and practical steps to altering your current reality, and to experiencing God's own reality.

Refresh your spirit, regain perspective and poise, and restart your life in the right direction. It's never late to begin again. Life is about subtracting, adding, or multiplying. By restarting you can truly subtract, add or multiply. Start afresh! Create the change you want to see!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter