As We Move Forward to 2017

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.

Hebrews xiii.8.

We leave many things behind us as we go on. We can never go back again over the closing year. We never go over any life-path a second time. We never pass a second time through any experience.
We have infancy once, childhood once, youth once, manhood and womanhood once, old age once, and we die once. We are forever leaving things, places, conditions, and experiences behind us. But through all these we have the same Christ, unchanged, unchanging.

The old ark was carried forward into the new land of promise, and still led the people. The Christ of childhood and of youth remains the Christ of manhood and of old age. Whatever changes the years bring to us, we just ever keep our eyes on the living Christ. He will always be all we need. There will never be a path which he cannot find for us and show us. There will never be a dark valley which he cannot light up for us. There will never be a battle which he cannot fight for us. There will never be an experience through which he cannot safely take us. We are leaving the old year behind, but we are not leaving Christ in the dead year. We need not be afraid, therefore, to go forward, if we go with him. We have not passed this new way heretofore, and it is all strange to our inexperience; but Christ knows and he will guide us, and all will be well if we put our hand in his.

                                                             --J. R. Miller, D. D., 1895