Great Expectations

December 31, 2023

Dr. Paul Cannings

Let us end this year by forgetting what is behind us and beginning the new year with great expectations. What I mean is don’t allow anything in the past year to curb your
excitement or reduce your expectations for the new year. There are many people who are no longer here at the end of this year, but God chose for us to enter this new year. He must still have a plan for your life. To enter the year with no purpose or not expecting God to do great things is to remove from our remembrance the ability of God to empower us from the inside out (1 John 4:4) and to achieve more than we can imagine. Our expectations in the new year should be based more on our faith rather than what our present circumstances may dictate. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21; NIV) “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37; NIV) “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31-32; NIV)

We need to make plans that do not violate the Word of God so that each step depends on it (Proverbs 13:13). With certainty, we can press forward because God’s Word does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). “I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”  (Jeremiah 17:10) A writer once said, “No plan is worth the paper it is printed on unless it starts you doing something.” The writer supports this with Habakkuk 2:2; “… Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run.”  In 2024, make it our year of vision and great expectations of what God can and will do.

Someone once said, “If success humbles you, failure will build you up. If success puffs you up, then failure will destroy you.”   “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.”  (2 Chronicles 16:9; NIV)

“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.” (Joshua 1:8) God is great, so let’s end the year with thanksgiving and begin a new year expecting great things!