New Years Resolutions

Dear friends,


Another New Year is here! For some it will be an awakening that last year’s resolutions were forgotten and for others it will be an opportunity to celebrate goals that have been accomplished. But for everyone it is chance to begin again! As Christians we understand the idea of new beginnings. In salvation God has given us new life and new hope. We know that we don't have to wait until January 1st for a second chance to get things right. By the grace of God, everything can be made right today, right now.

However, celebrating the New Year can help us to refocus our efforts, redirect our thoughts, and remedy lingering weaknesses in our lives, so that we might live more holy lives. To that end, many of us make New Year's resolutions.
I have enjoyed reading My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, as part of my New Year’s preparation. The Scripture for January 1st is Philippians 1:20, “…my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death”. Hi then comments, “It’s as if Paul were saying, ‘My determined purpose is to be my utmost for His highest – my best for His glory.’” And then, when thinking seriously about what it will cost if one obeys this call of Jesus, he declares, “Keep to the point…Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing—my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.” Wow! What resolve. And his life proved it!

Matthew Henry, the great Puritan scholar, had great resolve, as well.

"I do in the beginning of this New Year solemnly make a fresh surrender of myself, my whole self, body, soul, and spirit, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, my Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, covenanting and promising, not in any strength of my own, for I am very weak, but in the strength of the grace of Jesus Christ, that I will endeavor this year to stand complete in the Will of God."

What resolutions are you going to make this year? Lose weight? (I need to make that one.) Find time? Break habits? Mend fences?

I would like to suggest a few things that we all should be resolved to do in the New Year:
1. Praise God for every new day (Psalm 118:24)

2. Read through the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

3. Pray daily for one another and the church (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

4. Share your faith with at least one new person each week (Romans 10:14)


As you embark on a new beginning, consider Matthew Henry's New Year's prayer:


"Lord grant that this year I may be more holy, and walk more closely than ever in all holy conversation; I earnestly desire to be filled with thy holy thoughts, to be carried out in holy affections, determined by holy aims and intentions, and governed in all my words and actions by holy principles. O that a golden thread of holiness may run through the whole web of this year."
My New Year’s prayer is that I will have an “unstoppable determination for his holiness!" May the Lord grant you the same.
Grace and Peace,


Dayton Birt