It’s a brand-new year! But not much has changed. Many of us live in the same residence, with the same people, the same animals, the same furniture. We have the same school or job, the same routines, which may have gotten a little disrupted during the last week or two, but you get my point. We put a lot of hoopla into the calendar rolling to a different last digit, but much is the same as the day before, the week before, the month before, and the year before. So why the sense of a fresh start? Why the lists of resolutions, or as I call them, “hope to’s”: We “hope to” do, or not do, things; We hope to do more of, or less of, certain things.

A new year brings a sense of a clean slate. A time when we look with fresh vision on old routines. We could choose to have this same mindset at the start of each new day, each new hour, each new breath. For the resolutions we make, most of the time, they would make us better humans – focusing more on others, on self-care, on effort. What if we renewed our mind each and every time we stood up, or sat down, or opened our front door, or our car door? We have the blessed opportunity to make a positive difference wherever we are at that moment. We just have to choose that upbeat behavior. There are certainly things that bring us down. Legitimate things. Everyone has or will have them. We can choose to sit in that darkness or grab some Light to shed on it.

Jesus is Light. In the Bible, the book of John, it says “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.” (1:3) So in Genesis 1:3, when He said “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light”, there was nothing present or created that we associate with a light-giving source EXCEPT HIM. John points to this when he says “In [Jesus] was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.” (1:4-5) In Genesis and John we see that Jesus as Light is so wonderful and life-changing that it isn’t understood!

If we have Jesus in us, we have Light in us. We can shine it or squelch it. Our choice. When it’s super hard to shine, Jesus gives us power as His very own conduits! “This [Jesus] was the true Light that, coming into the world, enlightens every person. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him… AND as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood…but of God.” (John 1:9-13 emphasis mine)

Then Jesus tells us, “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14,16)

This light, this shine, it isn’t for us to keep. It isn’t ours. It is Jesus’s. We need to give it away! Others need to see and feel the difference this Light makes.

In Romans 12:2, we are commanded, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” We need to renew our minds. We aren’t part of the darkness; we have been transformed by the Light. When we shine in the darkness, it isn’t as dark. If we have trouble shining, we must destroy “speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God,” and take “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”! (2 Corinthians 10:5) We train our brains to cling to the fact that Jesus, the Light, overcomes darkness. We are victorious through Him by dispelling the darkness, bringing Him glory, and getting up every day knowing we are here for a grand and noble purpose to shine HIM to those around us. And you know what? Renewing each of our moments with the hope of eternity with Him brings us JOY! The kind of joy that penetrates from our souls to our toes.

What a privilege to live in the Light of eternity with every breath, every moment, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year! Have a JOY-filled year living with Jesus the Light on you and in you.