Dec
31
Resolutions
Filed Under Devotional
Every year about this time I begin to see the classic lists of New Year’s resolutions. You’ll get the list of the most popular resolutions, the list of resolutions your favorite sports team should make, the list of resolutions the politicians should make, and, of course, the list of how few people keep to those resolutions.
The whole impetus to making resolutions is this idea of a new year being a clean slate. Psychologically, there’s a dividing line between your past and future that drives people attempt to make changes and become different in the future. The reason these resolutions so regularly fail is because the whole idea of a resolution is that someone can, by sheer willpower, change his nature. He may be able to create better habits and fight his nature in a different way, but he cannot change his nature:
“The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9
We cannot change our nature. We cannot become better people through sheer willpower.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
“Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:21-24
It’s not about what you can do in the next year to be a new man. It’s about what He will do to make you a new man. Make a resolution to follow His plan.