New Year’s Resolutions

Today is New Year’s Day. The day we put the past year behind us and look forward to the next year, hoping it will be better than the previous one. Many of us make resolutions and become determined to make ourselves better people.

But once the joy of the new year wears off and we fall back into our regular routines everything returns to normal and nothing much changes. We are human, we make promises and we break promises.

Why We Fail

The problem is two-fold. First, we are making promises to ourselves and relying on ourselves to fulfill them. And second, many times our focus with these promises has to do with making ourselves better people in our own eyes, or in the eyes of others, and not in the eyes of God.

How to Succeed

As long as we continue to try to do it ourselves the cycle will continue. The only way to truly improve ourselves is to set our minds on things above and not on things below.¹ The focus of these promises should not be in conforming to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds.²

put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.³

True change needs to come from the heart and not from the head. True change can only come with the help of God. The change will begin when you accept Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior.

However, this is not a quick fix or a one-time promise made over a holiday. This is a lifelong quest of improvement through sanctification, with God helping us to become more like the person he wants us to be.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.⁴

My New Year’s Prayer

So I am not making a New Year’s resolution or a promise to myself to become a better person. I am asking God to help me to submit fully to his will. Please Lord create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

This year my only resolution, or more accurately my prayer, is to focus on the one who can help me to change, not only this year but also in the years to come.

Happy New Year and may God bless you all!

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1. See Colossians 3:2 ↩︎
2. See Romans 12:2 ↩︎
3. Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV ↩︎
4. Psalm 51:10 ESV ↩︎