The days around the birth of Jesus Christ are a celebration time, beginning with Advent, followed by Christmas, ending with the New Year’s Day – the “holiday season.” Festive foods are on sale, gaining weight is inevitable. With the coming of the New Year, resolutions of weight loss emerge together with diet pills and exercise equipment going on sale. By February, 90 per cent of the people are back to their routine, exercise equipment becomes furniture, guilt and a sense of defeat hits home.
New Year's resolutions are not bad things, but they are all about building ourselves up; not a bad idea, isn’t it? But, it is not a practical idea for vast majority of the population. So I suggest you accept yourself as God does, and love yourself as God does, just as you are right now and consider my offer below.
There are four Sundays in Advent and we name them, “Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.” They are qualities of God. Hope comes from the news that God has come to dwell on earth in baby Jesus and has committed to fix our problem by the cross so that the penalty of our sins can be paid and we may gain eternal life and receive the honourable title that we have been made sons of God. Peace comes when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Joy comes as we encounter His grace as we are rescued by Him and receive His blessings, and all these are acts of God and fruits of Love.
Those who receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour are born again by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit empowers them to do the works of God. God is love and when He acts towards us with His grace, His activity generates hope, peace, and joy in us and we feel loved. I invite you to align yourself with God’s work. Say something or do something that will give hope to people. Use words or actions that will comfort them and will bring peace into their hearts; be a peacemaker. When hearts are at peace and hope emerges, it becomes a fertile ground for simple words of love and actions of affection, which can sparkle joy in people; be a joy-giver. When people feel they are understood they feel less lonely in life and their pain diminishes. Quite often listening to their pain rather than telling them what to do accomplishes it. So, you can be like God, a hope-giver, peacemaker, joy-giver, comforter, a lover.
This may appear as another burdensome New Year's resolution but for the believers in whom the Holy Spirit indwells, this really is an invitation to the Holy Spirit to be active within you. When we align ourselves with God’s work and attempt to give one another what God wants to give to us, the Holy Spirit enables and empowers us to accomplish the task. That’s why He is in us.
This is not about being nice. This is an attractive resolution for those whose addiction is power who gets their kicks when they give pain on others by saying or doing things that put others down and keep themselves above. Make it your goal to make a change in others. You can see that you are very powerful by listening someone; you validated their existence, and they felt encouraged. You can see that you, by your attentive silence and by whispering a few words of hope, empowered the powerless by giving hope. You can see that you are so powerful; you have become a source of joy for the people around you. It is all the work of the Holy Spirit in you as you co-operate with Him.
Jesus Christ has built us up by removing our guilt, by giving us eternal life and by giving us the honourable title that we are children of God. There is nothing left missing. No need to keep on focusing how to build ourselves up; how to be a fine Christian. Now is the time to pour our powers into loved ones and to all who are neglected that they may no longer feel alone in this world. You are full of God’s power to make that change in people’s hearts. If Peter can walk on water, we can love one another; we can be peacemakers, and joy-givers. The same Holy Spirit who empowered Peter to walk on water is in you. But, do not attempt to walk on water please, use bridges instead, and enter into people’s heart through bridges of love.
Murat Kuntel is the pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
