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‘Behold, I make all things new’

As we head into a new year – and all year round – we can let God’s promise of newness inspire progress and healing.

  • By Karen Neff

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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Ringing in a new year affords an opportunity to reflect on the past year while we ponder what steps we wish to take in the new. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote, “A new year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy and promise clad in white raiment...” (“Pulpit and Press,” p. 1). Reflection can be truly inspiring as we turn to God for enlightenment.

One year, as I considered the potential the new year held, this line from the Bible came to thought: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

This is not only a present promise but also an eternal law of God, Spirit, that applies to all of us. God’s creation of man – each of us as His spiritual image – is fully made, eternally. Yet God’s loving and conscious knowing of each of us wasn’t a one-time event. It is an ongoing consciousness of all His spiritual offspring as perpetually vibrant and free.

A growing understanding of this helps deliver us from thoughts that aren’t from God and thus aren’t truly part of us – such as limiting thoughts relating to aging, accident, lack, or disease. This cleansing takes place through Christ – the active, healing message of God’s power and goodness – and unfolds greater health, progress, and opportunity.

I also like to think of “I make all things new” as “I make all things now!” All of God’s spiritual gifts are bestowed moment by moment, uplifting us in fresh, enlivening, strengthening ways that bless.

One time as a new year approached, I prayed for God to reveal to me what I needed in the coming year. Almost immediately came the thought, “I want to live a spiritually inspired life!”

This was a revelation to me, but I realized it truly was my heart’s desire. From that point on I prayed each day to open myself up to the inspiration God is always pouring forth. And it came! I awoke to unique, dawn-fresh, divine Soul-inspired, healing thoughts every day, and this has continued as I’ve prayed to remain humbly receptive. And such inspiration isn’t available only to certain people. It’s here for everyone.

Christ Jesus was the epitome of one who lived an inspired life that was perpetually fresh and new. “He was inspired by God, by Truth and Love, in all that he said and did,” Mrs. Eddy wrote (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 51). The influx of ideas that came to him from God, revealing man’s true nature as God’s whole and pure likeness, empowered him to heal countless people. And those healing ideas are here for us, too.

There is no limit to the blessings we can experience as enlivening spiritual inspiration pours in. In my case, a greater consciousness of our eternal, spiritual nature brought a vigor, energy, and freshness that I hadn’t experienced previously. It’s not just that I felt years younger; I felt ageless – as we all truly are.

We can quietly and meekly turn to God for a vitalizing sense of newness, right now. Then we find we are not only blessed but also a blessing to others in new ways, as we witness the ongoing fulfillment of our Father’s promise, “Behold, I make all things new.”

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