Dear Friends,

A New Year—a new You!  That is the name of a recent BBC television programme about the 10 jobs people would most love to do of which being an actor was number one!  A New Year brings the thought of new beginnings!  Yet, by the time you read this many people will have given up on the New Year’s Resolutions that they had set themselves.   How much do you want to have a new you?  The truth is very few people are prepared to put in the time and effort needed once the initial enthusiasm fades and the hard work starts to set in!   

When it comes to our lives, most of us probably have a few things we would like to change but the most important part of our life is our

relationship with God.  In our final Sunday worship of last year, we asked the question, “What is the one thing that we can do to improve our relationship with God next year?”   Is it reading the Bible or praying more regularly? Is it helping out somewhere?  Is it looking at what we give in our tithes and offerings?  The truth is there are probably a few things we could all improve on! 

The great joy we also found was that with God, we can always have a fresh start and the slate wiped clean, whether it’s the 1st January or the 31st December!  All God asks for us is to repent and seek His

forgiveness and follow Jesus with all our heart in the way we live our lives.  After all, think about how much God wanted to have a new

relationship with all of mankind?  God sent His Son Jesus that through Christ we might all have a new life, a new beginning if we accept His Son as our Saviour. 

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!”  What makes this wonderful is that anyone can become a ‘new’ person in Jesus at any time of the year: even right now as you read this!  As we move forward in 2007, may we delight that in that new person all of us become when we accept Christ as our Lord.  May God bless us all with His love, joy and peace! 

Paul Wood

Captain