New Year’s Day marks a new beginning—a new day of a new month of a new year. We serve a God of new beginnings that He wants us to experience and enjoy. Cartoonist Bill Keane said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” Some people look backwards and cling to the past for comfort, others look forward in hope and expectation for better days in the future, but the God we serve is a right now God!
One of God’s many names He revealed to Moses at the burning bush is “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14). This name of God is a form of the verb “to be” in Hebrew. It expresses God’s self-existence and the unchangeableness of His character. He transcends the past, the present, and the future. He always has been God, He always is God, and He always will be God! Notice He didn’t say, I Was Who I Was or I Will Be Who I Will Be. No, He is I AM Who I AM right here and right now in the present tense. He’s the great I AM who can breathe life and a brand-new beginning into our dead situations.
Passover was a new beginning for Israel. It was their national Independence Day or New Year’s Day. God said, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you” (Ex. 12:1-2). God changed their calendar and their lives forever. Their condition went from slavery to freedom, their master changed from Pharaoh to Jehovah, their position changed from bitter bondage in Egypt to pursuing the promises of God in Canaan Land. Passover in the Old Testament is symbolic of salvation in the New Testament. Now we have an even better blood covering—not the dried blood of a dead lamb but living blood of the resurrected Lamb of God. Just like Israel received a new beginning at Passover, we receive a spiritual new beginning in Christ via salvation. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
The number eight in the Bible signifies a new beginning. God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh day, thus our seven-day week. The eighth day starts a new week and indicates a new beginning. Furthermore, eight people were spared on Noah’s ark (Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their three wives). So, God started the entire human race over with just eight people. Circumcision was a token of God’s covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:10-14). By Mosaic/Levitical Law, all Jewish males were circumcised on the eighth day after their birth (Lev. 12:2-3, Ac. 7:8). This continued even in New Testament times. Even John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul were circumcised on the eighth day in keeping with the law (Lk. 1:59, Phil. 3:5). This was not just some random number God pulled out of thin air. Spiritually, it speaks of a new beginning by establishing a covenant relationship with God. Medically, on the eighth day, Vitamin K levels peak in infants for better blood clotting, less bleeding, less pain, faster healing, and lower infection rates.
Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Sunday—Mt. 28:1, Mk. 16:9, Lk. 24:1, Jn. 20:1). Sunday is also the eighth day from the first day of the previous week. In Old Testament times, the Sabbath was always observed on the seventh day (Saturday). After Christ’s resurrection, the early church began celebrating the Sabbath on the first day of the week (Sunday—Ac. 20:7). That is why most Christian churches now have services on Sundays to commemorate Christ’s resurrection (a new beginning).
The Year of Jubilee, which occurred every fifty years, was also a new beginning for Israel (Leviticus 25). Jubilee was a fresh start when debts were forgiven, slaves were released, many prisoners were freed, and land was restored back to its original owners. It was like God hit the reset button every half century. Jesus referred to Jubilee when He read Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue in Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach . . . the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk. 4:18-19). Another version renders it “the year of the Lord’s favor” (a reference to Jubilee). The Message reads, “This is God’s year to act!” I believe 2026 is going to be a “God did it” kind of year. The good news is we don’t have to wait fifty years for Jubilee. Jesus is our Jubilee and every day is a new beginning in Him.
Some of Jesus’ titles allude to a spiritual new beginning. He is called “Alpha and Omega,” “The Beginning and the End,” and “the First and the Last” multiple times in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 1:8, 11; 21:6; 22:13). Alpha, of course, is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last letter. That’s a poetic way of saying Jesus is A to Z and everything in between. He is the source from which the river of grace flows (every spiritual benefit originates in Him). Just like there is nothing before Alpha and nothing after Omega in the Greek alphabet, Jesus was here before anything else and He will still remain when everything else is gone.
Another related title of Jesus is “The Dayspring from on High” (Lk. 1:78). “Dayspring” means “the sunrise, the dawning of a new day, the first filtering sunrays that stretch across the horizon.” The Living Bible reads, “Heaven’s dawn is about to break upon us.” 2 Peter 1:19 calls Christ “the Day Star” and Revelation 22:16 calls Him “the Bright and Morning Star.” We now know this refers to the planet Venus (AKA “the herald of dawn”). Earth’s closest neighbor, Venus is the third brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon. Before the days of radar and GPS, sailors charted their course across the oceans to its light. Venus (the Morning Star) is the last star visible before the dawn, indicating a new day has come. Jesus brought a new day, a new age, a new era, a new kingdom, and a new beginning for all! After all other stars have faded from view, the Morning Star shines on. All the “stars” of this world will one day fade (celebrities, singers, musicians, athletes, movie stars, entertainers, politicians, presidents, and kings), but Jesus will outshine them all! He will shine so brilliantly, power plants will be obsolete and there won’t be any man-made lights in heaven—“The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light” (Rev. 21:23-24).
Since Jesus is the Alpha, the Beginning, the First, the Dayspring, and the Morning Star, every day is a new beginning with Him, and we don’t have to be prisoners of our past (2 Cor. 4:16, Phil. 3:13-14). We all like new things, right? Did you get some new stuff for Christmas? New clothes, new toys, or new gadgets? Well, John the Revelator disclosed several new things we will receive and experience:
- Revelation 2:17 informs us we are going to receive “a new name.”
- Revelation 5:9 indicates we are going to sing “a new song” at the throne of God.
- Revelation 21:1 reveals there will be “a new heaven and a new earth” whose builder and maker is God.
- Revelation 21:2, 18 describes “a new Jerusalem” that will come down from heaven, a righteousness city of pure gold.
- Revelation 21:5 declares, “Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW!’”
In 1914, ten of Thomas Edison’s fourteen laboratory buildings burned. It caused $7 million in damage, but he was only insured for about $2 million. As he and his son, Charles, watched it burn, Edison said, “Go get your mother and all her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.” Apparently, all of the chemicals they used in their experiments produced a dazzling fireworks display in the flames. Charles said, “I ached for him” because, at 67, Edison was no longer a young man and much of his life’s work was destroyed. Rummaging through the ruins, Edison said, “There is great value in disaster, all our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew . . . I am pretty well burned out tonight . . . we will start all over again tomorrow.” It’s comforting to know that whatever setbacks or hardships we face in life, there’s always a new beginning with God.