Welcome to 2017, dear readers.

We’re a few days in, and I have to tell you – it doesn’t feel much different. My kiddo said as much to me this morning when she had to go off to school. She thought she would be in a higher grade than she was before, but found she was still in the same class.

“Well, this is why I don’t like the New Year,” she said with a scowl.

I know what she means. You would think with a brand new year, something extraordinary would happen, fairy dust would fall from the sky and we would all feel magically better, be physically fit and automatically have 10 percent more knowledge.

Unfortunately, New Years Day did not bring any of that for me or put my daughter at a higher grade level. We were still exactly who we were before the ball dropped. (We fell asleep before the ball dropped anyway, so maybe that’s why we didn’t mysteriously change over night. Perhaps you have to physically watch the ball drop and see the clock flip over to 12:01 a.m. before you experience those life-altering changes.)

While we all woke up as the same people on New Year’s Day in 2017, we may have overlooked the radical change that could’ve occurred at any time between last year and today. No, it’s not some fad diet or new hair cut. It’s not a membership to a new gym, or a new job. However, it is life-changing.

In Acts 3, Peter addresses a crowd that was “utterly astounded” by the healing of a man who could not walk. He asks them why they were astounded, they who had denied Jesus and had had him crucified. Peter explained that that same Jesus, the Christ, made the man strong through faith. Yet, through the suffering and death of Christ, the resurrection occurred and that which God foretold through his prophets had occurred.

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, who heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago,” Peter said in Acts 3:19-21.

Sometimes, I think, like those watching Peter heal the man who was lame, we are looking for a miracle to come from men or our own wherewithal, and forget the power that God has. We forget to turn to the Lord in our time of need, distress or when we are desiring that newness of heart and mind. Yet, Peter gives us the answer here.

While we might think that repentance is something that is done when one first becomes a Christian, we must also remember that being human, we continue to give into temptations. Even Paul, a revered teacher and writer of many books in the Bible, complains that he does not do what he desires, but does the things that he hates in Romans 7:15.

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is want, I keep on doing,” Paul said in Romans 7:18-19.

However, he continues later in verse 24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

Or, we cling to the past, the person burdened with sin that is no longer. Rather, we are a new creation in Christ.

In the case of the new year, they say, “Out with the old, and in with the new.” Throw out your old sins, throw out your old ways and embrace the way of the Lord. He is waiting to give you peace, and as Peter said, blot out your sins and give you a time of refreshing.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists the definition of refreshing as, “serving to refresh, especially: agreeably stimulating because of freshness or newness.” We can received this freshness and newness in our new year. It doesn’t require you to watch the ball drop or wait for the flipping of a calendar. No matter where you are in your faith walk — whether you are a seasoned believer, a new Christian or someone just hearing the Good News for the first time.

If you have not yet accepted Christ, now is a great time to do so — start the year off with a clean slate, and enjoy the peace of Christ. If you are already a Christian, but you’re struggling, feeling dusty or hopeless — repent, let go of what God has already blotted out and be refreshed.