Tag: forgiveness

Letting Go of the Past Year

As I sit here in the last days of 2023, I like to take a few minutes to look back over the year.  Actually, I don’t love it, but I find myself doing it anyway.  What I really want to do is look forward to how I’m going to make the next year better, but as I start to do that, I find myself realizing that all the “new” things I hope for next year have their root in the disappointments of the year rounding up.  Yuck.  It’s full of failure, sin, and shame!  I feel like the list of things I want to get better at and the sins I want victory over is longer than the success list!

Each year as Christmas ends and I really start thinking about it all, my mind travels back to a New Year’s from years ago when it happened to be on a Sunday.  Our pastor preached a sermon that touched my heart!  Instead of talking about setting goals for the new year, he focused on letting go of the old one—saying good-bye to all the mess-ups and sins we still carry around even after repenting from them.

This years sin and shame nailed to the Christ of Jesus as we step clean into the next year! | mamasbrush

He reminded us that when we ask God for forgiveness, those sins get nailed to the cross. Not only doesn’t carrying them into the new year make sense, we aren’t supposed to do it!  All the guilt and shame that I tend to carry around without realizing it need to be put off. 

It was a simple but powerful reminder to start fresh and not drag the old stuff along.  That sermon inspired a painting that I’ve remade many of the years since.  Here is this year’s for you to download if you would like!  I hope it is a blessed reminder to your heart as it is to mine!

Download your freebie! (personal license only please!)

Won’t you please pin and share the graphic so others can be encouraged too!

Gathering here.

Good-bye 2018 ~ A New Year’s Sermon Revisited

Update: Find the 2023 version with free printable here.

I’ve posted before about the best New Year’s sermon I’ve ever heard. It was so great, in fact, that a year after I heard it, I was sharing it with you. And now, two years later, I’m back, reflecting on it again.

Only this year I’ve updated it!

Not only is it current, but I made those words at the bottom easier to read (I love incorporating Photoshop into my art process!)

Oh, those words. What a balm to my soul! “Don’t hold on to last year’s guilt and shame. Those sins were nailed to the cross!” Thank you Pastor Jerry for that amazing reminder! And it’s because of that amazing truth that we can look forward with hope and excitement to 2019!

But there’s more!

In celebration of New Year’s and my one year blogiversary on January 2nd, I have a gift for you! I’ve created an 8×10 and a 5×7 version for you to print for yourself!

Now, a warning… I’ve spent the whole evening trying to figure out how to make this work, so if it’s not working… sorry! (And please let me know so I can help.) Until today, I didn’t even know if I could do this from a wordpress.com site. So we’ll see if it works for you as well as it did for me.

Instructions:
1. Click one of the links below
2. Right click the image and select “save image as” from the drop down menu.
3. Save it where you can find it.

Once you’ve done all that, you should be able to print it. Just make sure to select the proper size when printing . 🙂

Files:
Click here to “save image as” the 5×7 version.
Click here to “save image as” the 8×10 version. 

Gathering here!