January 1 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"You have not passed this way before" (Joshua 3:4).

Devotional

How solemn the reflection is that with a new cycle of time, a new and unmarked path begins for each traveler to Zion! New events will transpire in his history. New scenes will unfold in the landscape of life. New phases of character will develop. New temptations will assail. New duties will devolve. New trials will be experienced. New sorrows will be felt. New friendships will be formed. And new mercies will be bestowed. How truly it may be said of the pilgrim journeying through the wilderness to his eternal home—as he stands upon the threshold of this untried phase of life pondering the unknown and uncertain future—"You have not passed this way before!"

Reader! If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, enter upon a new stage of your journey by a renewed surrender of yourself to the Lord. Make the cross the starting-point of a fresh setting-out in the heavenly race. Oh, start this year with a renewed application to "the sprinkled blood" (Heb. 12:24). There is vitality in that blood. And its fresh sprinkling on your conscience will be as a new impartation of spiritual life to your soul. Oh, to begin the year with a broken heart for sin, beneath the cross of Immanuel, looking through that cross to the heart of a loving, forgiving Father!

Do not be anxious about the future; all that future God has provided for. "My times are in your hand" (Ps 31:15). "Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you" (1 Pet 5:7). "Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you" (Ps 55:22).

Let it be a year of more spiritual advance. "Tell the people of Israel to go forward" (Ex 14:15). Forward in the path of duty. Forward in the path of suffering. Forward in the path of conflict. Forward in the path of labor. And forward in the path to eternal rest and glory. Soon that rest will be reached. Soon that glory will appear. This new year may be the jubilant year of your soul—the year of your release. Oh spirit-stirring, ecstatic thought—this year I may be in heaven!

Beneath your cross, O Jesus
I joy to take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty Rock
within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day.

I take your cross's shadow
for my abiding place:
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of your face;
content to let the world go by,
to know no gain nor loss;
my sinful self my only shame,
my glory, all your cross.

(Elizabeth C. Clephane, 1872; alt., LEW, 2009)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.