Top Ten Scriptures for the New Year
As we move into the New Year, before you set your resolutions, this is a great time to hear from God. We are all in transition, always. New Year’s is a strategic moment to ask God to speak to you – about your life, and what’s next for you. The Bible helps us get the right perspective, opens our eyes, and aligns our plans with the Lord’s. Here are some of my favorite passages to look at this time of year. Some talk about time, others testing, some trust. Let God speak to you through them. Digest them all, or chew on them one at a time over the next couple of weeks. Enjoy!
1. Psalm 90:1-6, 10-12
Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.” 4 A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. 5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning: 6 In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. 11 If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. 12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
2. James 4:13-17
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
3. Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
4. Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
5. Galatians 6:7-8
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what they sow. The one who sows to please their sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
6. Luke 2:52
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people.
7. Mark 1:17-18
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
8. Luke 9:23
Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
9. 2 Corinthians 5:17
If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
10. Revelation 21:5
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”