Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)—-read 1 Samuel 7:5-12

Dr. F. W. Boreham told of a scrap of paper that was framed and displayed in his parent’s home. The words said: “Hitherto Hath the Lord Helped Us.” One day he asked his mother about it, and she told him of a time when she and her husband faced a crisis. She was distressed for weeks, but one day as she paced back and forth she paused in front of an almanac on the wall. “The only thing I saw was the text in the corner,” she said. “It was as if someone had spoken the words: ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.’ I was so overcome, I sat down and had a good cry; and then I began again with a fresh heart and trust.”

This is a wonderful verse for the New Year! The same God who brought us this far will lead us on. He Who has been our help in ages past is our hope for the years to come. If we live in the light of eternity ,knowing our times are in His hands, we can face each day with confidence and courage.

In 1758, Robert Robinson based his great hymn “Come, Thou Fount” on this verse and it continues to cheer our hearts today. As we start out the new year it would do us good to read the entire song:

   “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:3).

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”(2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Here again is the great motive in the life of the apostle–“the love of Christ”—- constrains us, drives us out, motivates us, and then guides us after we get there, that sets the limits to what we should and should not do. That motive, he says, comes from the sense that Christ loves us.

I do not know anything greater and more powerful as a motivating factor than that. I get terrified sometimes at what God can do to me if I do not behave. That motivates me sometimes. It is a low motivation, but it is there. But the thing that will get to me, when nothing else will, is the continuing experience of the love of Christ for me, a refreshment of spirit that I gain from the awareness that He loves me, He is for me, He stands beside me, He delights in me. Knowing that will move me like nothing else. That is what Paul is experiencing here–the awareness that God loves him. There is nothing like it. It gives him a sense of security,—- start thinking about what God says about you, how He loves you, and how Christ loves you and has given Himself to you, and that will change everything.

He also says he has learned that the death of Christ freed him from the need to live for himself I do not know anything more relevant to the current day than that statement. Everywhere I turn I hear people talking about what they have to do to “meet their needs.” Whatever they do or wherever they go is determined by how well their needs are met. You need to understand this important truth: Jesus Christ died to set you free from that syndrome. You do not need your needs met; He has already met them. You must learn that He has met your needs, because they will never be met by any other source. No one else is able to meet them. If you have that expectation of other people, you will find yourself suffering rejection at others’ hands because they know they cannot meet your needs.

“One has died for all,” and that means, “all have died” in order that they might understand that they live no longer for themselves. After Christ has met your needs, you discover that the secret to life as it ought to be lived is that you then turn and try to meet the needs of others. That is what Paul is saying here. “He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves,” no longer with their needs at the center of their life, trying to build everything around them, “but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

Lord, reveal more and more of Your great love to me. Let Your love meet all of my needs, and set me free to live not for myself but for You.  –By Ray Stedman