Ecclesiastes 3:1  “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”   There is a time for everything, and now is the time to say “Goodbye” to the old year.  Everything comes to an end.  No  matter how long the day, night falls, no matter how long the night, day will break.  The seasons change and with winter I am already looking for Spring and Summer.  We read in the Bible about the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New Covenant.  We go from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  When we look at this, we can thank God for the end and the new beginning.

            This will be the same with what you or I go through.  What ever battle your going through there will be an end to it.  And there will be a new beginning.  God has a plan for you.  A new break through.  God will not hold last years mistakes or failures against you.  He never uses your past to lay out your future.  As I have always said, “The past is past at last, Isaiah 43:18, 19  “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” The comments after this verse says, the Holy Spirit is saying that the old Deliverance will be as nothing compared with the new.  Israel (you) must cast its eye forwards, not backwards.  “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?  I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”   There may be times it seems there is no way, but God will make a way.  It will come to past, just trust and have faith in God.

            This same principle also applies to the church.  The church body will go through seasons, too.  Anything that does not go through a season is at a stand still or maybe dead.  Sad to say many churches have not had a season of change for many years.  I can say for Pleasant Grove we have been through many seasons through the years.

             I don’t really care for the winter anymore.  And it doesn’t have anything to do with my age, or I don’t think so.  As a country boy, I always knew in the winter months I would prune my fruit trees.  Even if I don’t really care for winter, it is very important for growth.  I believe we have been through the season of purging.  I believe we are at a time of Spring in the Spiritual realm of the church.  That means new growth, new fruit, a new move of the Spirit of God.  I know the Holy Spirit has been laying some things on my heart for the New Year.  There have been folks who have spoke to me of dreams and visions.  There has been people, outside of this church, who has given confirmation of a new season with God in this ministry.  One thing the Holy Spirit has been speaking is, “Press in, press in, now is the time to press in.”  God will not force you to press in, you will need to lay some things aside and put your hand to the plow and go forward.

            The apostle Paul put it this way in Philippians 3: 13, 14 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto those things which are before.  “I Press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  Paul was saying, “Press in, press in.”  In this New Year take time to get closer to God than ever before.  It will be valuable for you, and God wants to do a New Thing in your life in this New Year.

God Bless you in the New Year,    

                                                                                                         Pastor Denny