Happy New Year!

May the Lord bless you all with a wonderful and a Christ centered New Year. As this last day of 2010 was drawing to a close I was meditating on the reasons why so many Americans turn every year to gods and religions that are empty of truth and meaning. I think the curse of our times has been what A. W. Tozer once said, "The curse of everything today is that it has to be funny. If it is not funny, it is not popular."

In much of our Christian world in the West we have lost the sense of God's majesty and God's mystery. We have so trivialized our faith that we have removed the awe and wonder from it. Hence, many have sought for mystery, majesty and fulfillment in the false gods of the age. It was St. Augustine the bishop of Hippo who said, "Thou hast created us for Thyself and we are restless until we rest fully in Thee." Many Christian pastors and leaders have so trivialized the faith of our fathers and misrepresented it that they have been part of the problem of gutting the faith that they were sworn by a holy oath to defend and to proclaim.

Let us return to the worship of the Most High with humble hearts filled with praise and adoration for the finished wonders of His sovereign grace. May we find joy and peace in Christ. May we find our hearts filled with happiness and joy from the only fountain that can satisfy the spiritual thirst of our souls--the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins!

"Change from glory into glory,

Till in heaven we take our place,

Till we cast our crowns before thee,

Lost in wonder, love, and praise."

Charles Wesley