Ah… the New Year, a time for reflection and looking ahead, a time for resolutions and a time for breaking them. I often don’t make a New Year resolution until a week or two after the big day, that way I’m pretty sure there won’t be any more major food parties to tempt me. You guessed it, my usual resolution, every year, is to lose the pounds I’ve gained over the Christmas season and get back down to the weight the Doctor likes before my next visit.
Why? Why do I care what the Doc thinks about my weight? Well, because he holds me accountable to keep to a target weight that is good for my well being. Have you ever thought to make a spiritual resolution at the beginning of a new year? Have you ever thought that you would like to make a change in your life or lifestyle that would enhance your spiritual life?
Maybe most of you have made a New Year’s resolution, but we really should be making resolutions every day as the Holy Spirit reveals sin in our lives, even the sin of overeating.
God’s desire for each of us as Christians is Christ likeness and our attitude should be the same as the Apostle Paul’s was in Philippians 3. Paul’s desire he says in Philippians 3:9-11 “…and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
He goes on to say in v.12: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”
The act of making a resolution is much like pressing on. That word to “press on” in the Greek is in the present tense. That means it’s an ongoing thing. The making of New Year’s resolutions for believers must be rooted in the Gospel and the finished work of Christ on the cross. Because the Gospel is the only place we can truly find Him. We can, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, place our hope in God. That God will work in us and do even more to conform us to the image of His Son and work that out in very practical ways in our lives daily this year and every year.