As we are approaching the end of another year it would do us all good to reflect upon the faithfulness of God, Another 365 days have almost passed. And on each one of those days and the night that accompanies it, God (our loving heavenly Father), has never failed us even once. So we might well set up our Ebenezer, our stone of help, and glorify our loving Heavenly Father, for His unchanging faithfulness. If we honestly look at our own lives, each of us will have to confess with shame that we have failed the Lord many times during the passage of the year that has almost passed. Yet He has never changed, He who foreknew us, who knew every failure that, would mar these days. Has never grown tired of us, has never given us up, or cast us off. "Blessed be His Holy Name".

Yet He is not to be blamed for even one of our failures, be it the smallest or the largest. He has made every provision to enable us to live such a life as will bring glory and honour to His great and holy name. According to His great and precious promises, (promises which can never fail), "He has given us, (not will give us, but has given us), and according to His divine power, (a power which according to the hymn writer has "no boundary known unto man"), all things that relate to life and godliness". (2Peter 1:3&4)

It would do us all good to dwell upon His faithfulness, and the abundance of His provision for us. We surely will have to testify as Joshua did of His unfailing faithfulness.  (Joshua 23:14). God will always act according to His holy word, as the poet has written, "The Lord is Holy and Just and True, and what He has said he will surely do".

We might well join with the Psalmist and say, "Bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!" Not only has He loaded us each day with material benefits, but also "He has blessed us with all, (every). Spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus". Oh how He loves to give and to bless!

When we look back over the past year, it has been a year of disaster for so many people, and a year of disaster also for many nations. These disasters began on Boxing Day with the dreadful Tsunami, which was followed in turn by the dreadful earthquake that devastated much of Kashmir, and the hurricane that has all but destroyed much of the district of New Orleans. This has cast a pall of gloom over the year, but it has come with a warning to genuine Christian believers the world over. We believe that we, (the Church), will not pass through the Great Tribulation., the scoffers will ask, "What then is this?" We answer it is but a fleabite compared with the Great Tribulation’. Just a tiny area of this worlds surface was visited by the judgement of God in the great disasters mentioned, but what is that compared with the "Whole habitable earth", which is soon to taste that terrible "Hour of Trial", of which our Lord spoke? Some hundreds of thousands were cut off in a moment, and in many cases without warning, (during the disasters mentioned), but what is that compared with a third of humanity, (according to present statistics, around 2 Billions). I think that you will agree it is almost nothing. Those who teach that the Church must pass through the Great Tribulation, have almost no conception of how terrible will be the "Day of Jacob’s Trouble". Let us do as the Lord Jesus asks us to do, that is, let us lift up our heads for the day of our Redemption is drawing nigh!

May He help us so to live through the hours of the year that is about to dawn on us, as though it will be our last, that during the hours of 2006 we may see our blessed Lord, and stand before His Judgement Seat!

May He bless you and yours, and use you mightily throughout the days of 2006!