A Clean Start

by Mary E. Stephen
January 2008, 2025

Lamentations 3:22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

How curious and yet appropriate that these comforting words should appear in the book or Lamentations - a book of sorrow with a word of hope and comfort. This is the way of our Lord.

The lines of an old poem came to mind recently. I looked it up and here is part of it:

Every day is a fresh beginning,
Every morn is the world made new;
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you --
A hope for me and a hope for you...

Yesterday now is part of forever,
Bound up in a sheaf which God holds tight;
With glad days and sad days and bad days which never
Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight --
Their fullness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot relive them;
Cannot undo, and cannot atone;
God in His mercy receive and forgive them;
Only the new days are our own,
Today is ours, and today alone...

("New Every Morning", Susan Coolidge)

This comfort comes to the child of God in the above verse and in 1 John 1: 9; If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

As we head into this new year it's a great comfort to know that through Jesus Christ our sins from last year can be washed away and removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.) This is infinite distance and means that they are completely removed! Thank God that we can start out this new year with a clean slate if we but obey His word and confess our sins!

We who are "in Christ" are not responsible to pay for the sins of last year or of any time in our life. He paid the price in full for us on Calvary. We are saved to the uttermost. Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Last year, and already this year, we have failed, we have sinned. But through confession to God and forgiveness from God each year, each day, each hour can be a new beginning to start fresh - as white as snow!

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Psalm 51:7 ...wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me to hear joy and gladness...10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Let us go joyfully and hopefully into the new year with our sins confessed and forgiven through Jesus Christ! Through Him, and Him alone, our year lies white and clean before us and miraculously, the past year can lie white and clean behind us! This is peace and comfort beyond human understanding!

Philppians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.