Good Words for Today: December 31

  Though most of us have never sung this hymn (if I have, I don’t remember it), the message seems especially appropriate for a day when we sum up the year just ending and think about what God has for us in 2016. We could hardly do better than to ponder these words written by Charles Wesley in 1762. He took his inspiration from the Bible commentary of Matthew Henry on Leviticus 8:35. From that unlikely verse (which has to do with the ordination of priests under the Old Testament law) came commentary that led to a hymn that calls each of us to end this year committed more than ever to do the Master’s will. “A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify, A never-dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky. To serve the present age, My calling to fulfill: Oh, may it all my pow’rs engage To do my Master’s will!”  

December 31, 2015