Illustrations

I am the New Year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.

I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.

All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.

All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.

One New Year’s Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.

Even though Christians have access to God’s omnipotence, if we do not avail ourselves to it we will run out of power.

Source: The Minister's Manual, Lee McGlone

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

One week a Sunday school teacher had just finished telling her class the Christmas story.  After telling the story the teacher asked, "Who do you think the most important woman in the Bible is?”

A little boy raised his hand and said, “Eve.” The teacher asked him why he thought Eve was the most important woman in the Bible. The little boy replied, “Well, they name two days of the year after Eve. You know, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.”

Source: Unknown

The top three New Year’s resolutions for men in 2008 were:
1. Stop smoking
2. Spend less money
3. Lose weight

The top three New Year’s resolutions for women in 2008 were:
1. Lose weight
2. Be a better person
3. Stop smoking

Source: Beaumont Enterprise, January 2, 2008

Someone once observed that a wasted life is really nothing more than a collection of wasted days. As God gives us life, each one of us starts the new year with the same number of opportunities—365—that we can choose to either use and invest in eternal things or allow to drift by without taking advantage of the gift we have been given. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is not found primarily in talent but in diligence and effort.

A television interviewer was walking the streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. The interviewer stopped one young woman on the sidewalk, and asked, “What is the meaning of Christmas?”

She responded, “I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?”

There was some truth in her answer—Christ was born to die.

Source: More Grace for the Daily Grind, Larry Briney

According to the Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey for 2011, 70% of American adults like stores to use signs that say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” when they are shopping.

Source: Rasmussenreports.com

8. Well, well, well, now, there’s a gift!

7. No, really, I didn’t know that there was a Chia pet tie! Oh, wow! It’s a clip-on too!

6. You know, I always wanted one of these! Jog my memory—what’s it called again?

5. You know what?—I’m going to find a special place to put this!

4. Boy, you don’t see craftsmanship like that every day!

3. And it’s such an interesting color too!

2. You say that was the last one? Am I glad that you snapped that baby up!

It’s only natural that stressed-out people eat more desserts, because “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” If that’s true, there’s a lot of stress between Thanksgiving and New Year.

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

When John Quincy Adams was eighty years old, a friend said, “How is John Quincy Adams?”

He replied, “John Quincy Adams himself is very well, thank you; but the house he lives in is sadly dilapidated. It is tottering on its foundations. The walls are badly shattered, and the roof is worn. The building trembles with every wind. And I think that John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it before long. But he himself is very well.”

Source: Sword Scrapbook II, Viola Walden