What will you change for the better? Asked one product in its prime time commercial at one of the leading TV networks in the country.
Some would say, I want to quit smoking. Others would probably say, I’d kick my drinking habit. While still others would respond, I’ll study harder.
Every time we approach the New Year, people make their own resolutions. All geared towards changing for the better.
Dictionary.com says resolution is the the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.
I have made my own share of resolutions in the past, back when I was still elementary. I remember one of the things I resolved to do come the new year was to treat my younger brother well. I was naughty back then, making my brother cry most of the time.
I also resolved to obey my parents and not talk back to my mother.
I did make my own resolutions as a grade-schooler, but one thing I noticed, I just couldn’t follow it through. In short, I couldn’t change for the better.
Ever had that kind of experience before? Where you feel like your backs are against the wall? Where you feel like there’s no way you could kick the bad habit out of your life?
I thought I was a hopeless case. That with each passing year, I was trapped forever in my old ways.
But as I read the pages of the Bible as a new believer, I read a portion of Romans 7 that finally changed the way I welcome the New Year.
Romans 7:21-25 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
We just celebrated Christmas a week ago. Parties here and everywhere. Gifts given to families and friends. Reunions here and there. But lest we forget, Christ’s arrival more than 2,000 years ago was to rescue us from our sinful state.
We can’t change. We won’t change.
But in Christ, WE CAN CHANGE.
As the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Blessed New Year to everyone!