WHAT'S NEW FOR 2025? A New Command
- Jan 1, 2025
- 2 min read
Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed the ADVENT devotionals! For the next two months, I'll be focusing on WEEKLY devotionals before starting a new Lenten series in March. If you wish to stop receiving these devotionals, just let me know.
What's NEW for 2025 for you? 2025 looks BRIGHT because it is filled with the LIGHT of JESUS CHRIST. Jesus has A NEW COMMAND for us!
A NEW COMMAND
1 John 2:7-11
Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.
Today I have a new command: I was made to live in the light, so get rid of the darkness. The light is filled with love, in which I cannot stumble.
The darkness blinds me from knowing my direction. If I walk around in the darkness, my heart is filled with hate. When I walk in the light, my heart is filled with love, and my direction is clear.
There are several things that make me blind to my direction. Unconfessed sin, selfishness, a proud spirit, unresolved conflict, unforgiveness and a lack of compassion can contribute to the darkness in my heart.
In all these things, my heart is agitated and in chaos and turmoil. God wants my heart to be filled with His love, but in order to have that I need to give up all the sinful things in my heart to God, asking Him to cleanse my heart for Him.
I desire to know where I am going—I want to know the direction and purpose for my life. I ask God to cleanse my heart. For everyone that I haven’t forgiven—I forgive them. I do not expect anything from them, and I only have goodwill and God’s love for them.
Lord, I give all the dark things in my heart to You. Please wash my heart and fill it with Your love. Please help me to LIVE TO LOVE. I desire to live your NEW COMMAND!
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
May you be blessed!
Chaplain Wayne Ruckman
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