Revelation chapter 22 verse 21 (NIV)
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.
So it’s the last day of the year and once again I have managed to complete the Bible in a year, thanks to Nicky Gumbel ‘s app. Consequently another year of personal musings has continued in my bible blog. Tomorrow we begin a New Year, and I will begin it all once more, confident that there will be new and fresh lessons to be learned. It’s fitting then that the verse that jumped out at me today, on the cusp of 2026, is the last verse in the last book of the Bible, and it encourages us forward in a very positive way for whatever lies ahead for us in 2026.
We all need grace because we all mess things up. There will have been times in 2025 when we have done things we shouldn’t, but we could count on the grace and forgiveness of God to pick us up and set us on the right road. The same will be true in 2026, but we can count on the same grace that we read of here as we head into another year.
And as that grace is extended to us let’s be sure to extend it to others with the kindness and mercy God extends to us. In the words of the famous poem by Minnie Haskins –
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied:
‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’
So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”
Dear Lord,
let me then go into 2026 knowing Your grace and Your guiding hand in whatever the new year brings. I ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen.