Goodbye Yesterday
by Dale Reeves
Story Pastor
This past Sunday at Christ’s Church before we communed with our Lord at his table, I shared the story behind the worship song, “Goodbye Yesterday,” which reaches back almost two centuries to several phrases that were part of an old camp song we sang when I was growing up. The worship song incorporates some lines from the classic hymn, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” The lines “The world behind me, the cross before me, I won’t turn back” are woven into this song, leaning into its main theme of embracing a new life in faith. Perhaps you sang that song as a child too, and you may have even been baptized at church camp in response to this chorus.
The origin dates way back to the year 1859. A great revival in Wales, United Kingdom, launched missionaries across the world, spreading the gospel. Some missionaries traveled to the land of the Garo people, fierce headhunters who inhabited the jungles of Assam, India. The locals of the Garo tribe did not welcome them. A certain missionary led a family to Christ in the village of Assam, including a husband and wife and their two children. As the story goes, the angered village chief called the people together and threatened to execute the first family who came to faith in Jesus unless they would renounce their faith in front of the village. The husband, whose name was Nokseng, the first to embrace the gospel, declared, “I have decided to follow Jesus, and I will not turn back.”
The village chief then ordered his sons’ execution by arrows. As his children died, the chief challenged him again to renounce his faith. “Now give up your faith,” he ordered Nokseng. “You have lost both your children, and I will kill your wife next.” Nokseng replied, “Though no one joins me, still I will follow.” Even more furious, the chief ordered his archers to kill his wife, and when she was dead, he turned again to Nokseng, “If you don’t renounce Jesus, you will die, too.” Facing his own death, he would not waver, and continued to say the same thing.
The chief’s archers shot the man where he stood, but the chief was deeply moved by his faith. Stunned by the family’s unwavering faith in Christ, the chief had a spiritual awakening and finally confessed, “I, too, belong to Jesus Christ!” A very unlikely transformation. And his confession led to an amazing revival in the entire village. An Indian Christian missionary, Sadhu Sundar Singh, formed Nokseng’s last words into the decision song many of us sang as kids.
Such is the power of what happens when we are bold enough to share with others—no matter the cost—how Jesus has rescued us from our mess!
Unlikely Transformations
In our current teaching series at Christ’s Church, our lead pastor Brad Wilson taught last Sunday about wicked King Manasseh and his ungodly practices that went directly against the spiritual reforms his father Hezekiah had brought about in Judah. You can check out that teaching here. Eventually King Manasseh experienced an unlikely transformation—a profound change of heart—genuinely repented, and humbled himself before God, restoring true worship in Jerusalem.
A few weeks ago in a sermon I mentioned a fellow who had been in one of my first senior high youth groups when I was in full-time student ministry many years ago. He was always causing trouble, seemed to never be listening, and I didn’t know if anything I was saying was getting through to him. He was one of those kids that makes you think, “I don’t know if there’s any hope for this guy. Why do I keep trying?” And, then, out of the blue, about a month before Christmas he reached out to me to talk about getting reconnected with God. He wanted to come and visit me. He lives on the west side of Cincinnati, and has been to Christ’s Church twice recently. I guess a few of the seeds I planted forty years ago made a difference for him.
Have you ever said about someone, “There’s no hope for that person. Surely, they have a one-way ticket to Hell!”? Parents, do you have any prodigals that have renounced the faith you brought them up in, and you don’t ever see them coming back to a real saving faith in Jesus Christ?! I would encourage you to take a step back, bring them before God in prayer again, ask him to bring other people or circumstances into their life that might give them a wake-up call, realizing that God has not called you to be “the closer,” but just to be faithful in planting seeds, praying, and leaving the results up to him.
A Prayer for a New Year
What kind of unlikely transformation are you asking God to bring about in your life this year? It all begins by praying. What kind of unlikely transformations are you asking God to bring about in your ONE MORES this year? In a recent staff meeting, I made the comment, “We shouldn’t be surprised when we see God move in the lives of our ONE MORES when we’ve been praying for them consistently!”
That’s where it all starts . . . prayer, then asking God how you can be part of that answered prayer. I am fervently praying that God will use us for his glory, however he chooses to, in this new year!
I would encourage you to listen to this worship song today, and ask God, “What do I need to say ‘Goodbye!’ to in 2026?”
Then, ask God to give you the strength to follow through.
“Goodbye, yesterday, I’m livin’ in the light of a new day, I won’t waste another minute in my old ways; Praise the Lord, I’ve been born again . . .
“You rescued me out of the mess I was in, You traded my sorrow for something to sing; Now, I’m dancin’ on the grave that I once lived in . . .
“I have decided to follow Jesus, The world behind, the cross before; And I won’t turn back. I have decided to follow Jesus, The world behind, the cross before; And I won’t turn back.”
© 2025, Essential Music Publishing
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14, ESV).