The end of every year is a fitting time to take stock of our lives. We count our failures and successes, our blessings and our losses, and we look at where we have been and where we are going.
Many of us will make resolutions to change some aspect of our behavior in 2019. We may want to lose weight, or get in better physical condition or to get promoted at work or develop better personal relationships, but for most of us when night falls on 2019, most of those resolutions will still be unfulfilled, shuffled forward to another year as we continue in a never-ending desire to become a better us.
We are working right now on the third installment of our Kinsman series. Like the rest of the series, the third book, which will be ready for release next Christmas, follows characters who need to be rescued--either from the consequences of their own actions or the actions of others. I smile when I read reviews of the first books saying that the books make them wish that "something like this could happen in real life."
We just finished celebrating Christmas, and we looked at nativities and sang songs of the child in the manger, but Christmas is so much more than a sweet story about a little baby who was born in a stable. The cave in which Jesus was born is symbolic of the tomb where He was laid after his crucifixion, and the swaddling clothes in which his parents wrapped him represent the grave cloths. He did not come to earth to be a good man or a good teacher—He was born to die for us in the greatest search and rescue operation of all time. The God of the universe looked down and saw our lonely, lost, dysfunctional world—a world which we were powerless to change—and loved us so much that He sent His only Son to save us. Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer who came to release our debt, and He extends to each of us the greatest invitation we will ever be offered. But for His invitation to impact us, we must recognize the immense opportunity which we have been offered; then we must be willing to accept it for ourselves and fully embrace our new life. And we have to understand that as we accept the invitation for ourselves, we take on both the ability and the responsibility to impact and change the lives of others.
In the books, the invitations extended to the recipients warn that if the individual fails to respond no later than "precisely at midnight" the invitation will be considered to have been declined and "no further invitations will be extended." In reality, God extends His priceless invitation to give us forgiveness, a new start and a new life repeatedly throughout our lifetimes, but, if we refuse to accept it, there is finally a day for all of us when the invitation is considered declined and no future invitations are available.
In the books, the invitations extended to the recipients warn that if the individual fails to respond no later than "precisely at midnight" the invitation will be considered to have been declined and "no further invitations will be extended." In reality, God extends His priceless invitation to give us forgiveness, a new start and a new life repeatedly throughout our lifetimes, but, if we refuse to accept it, there is finally a day for all of us when the invitation is considered declined and no future invitations are available.
As we start the New Year, I invite each of you to see 2019 as more than an opportunity for a new resolution. This year can be a year for a rescue—a year for salvation and a new life. Accept God’s invitation to you in 2019. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Alexandra and Joyce Swann's second installment in the Kinsman Series, Precisely at Midnight, was released October of 2017. For more information, visit their website at http://www.frontier2000.net.
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