New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year again: New Year’s Resolutions! Or maybe for other people it’s not such a great thing. Some people, like myself, have decided to give up on it altogether as we know that we’d probably forget our resolutions by the end of the week (or even the next day).

So let’s do a little thinking for one moment. Think of three New Year’s resolutions for the year 2011. Two of them are about whatever you want and the last one is what someone who cares for you (e.g. parents, best friends) would want you to write. It may look like this:

Yes. The last one sounds like a beast, but so do the two preceding ones. This brings us to our topic which is self-improvement.

Go to any bookstore and there you will find an avalanche of self-help and self-improvement books authored by people from all walks of life. But what does self-improvement mean to a Christian? What does the bible have to say?

In your mind, think of three resolutions that pertain to spiritual growth, anything that will help you grow closer to God. It could look somewhat like this:

Here’s a paraphrased real-life story I heard from a teacher who also heard it from someone else:
“I bought an old chair in a garage sale one day. It was so cheap that I decided to buy it and take it home to see if I could make use of it. The chair had so many layers of paint on it that I had to paint it with stripper paint repeatedly. Every time I painted it, it revealed a different color: green, red, yellow, pink. The chair turned out to be a beautiful wooden, oak chair. In the same way, God strips us off the ‘paint’ on ourselves until something beautiful beneath is revealed.”

Is this story true? Does something true and beautiful dwell in us? Or is the thing that lies in us filthy and despicable?

Romans 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one”

The problem with New Year’s resolutions or other resolutions is that they generally have to do with how WE can improve ourselves. We work hard to gain new skills or to improve our character but this isn’t exactly the way to grow spiritually.

Romans 6:6-7 “ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin”

Through our baptism, we are free from sin. This doesn’t mean that we don’t sin anymore, it means that we are forgiven of the sins we have done. With the baptism in Christ’s death, our old selves die and we are a new body, free from the clutches of sin.

The way we can have victory over sin is not by suppressing ourselves (making legalistic rules that we should follow, e.g. be patient, forgive others), it is by expressing the full life that God offers. It means that we commit our lives to God and choose to die to our selves. We don’t choose to improve ourselves because we know that our condition is worthless without God. So if you are looking to grow close to God this year, I suggest these three resolutions:

Don’t make a bunch of rules for yourself and think that you are going to become closer to God. Choose to put on the new nature that you have received in Christ Jesus. God does miraculous things as long as we choose to follow His Way.