I love my alarm clock. I love waking up and realizing the night is gone—that the misdeeds of the day before are no longer my present reality.
New Year’s resolutions are like this. Resolutions are like grace for the world: the realization the past is not the future. People can change.
For Christians, starting over is critical. Jesus is the author of fresh starts, a new life and a changed mindset. He is the creator of transformed believers.
“See the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” (Isa. 42:8-9)
When I think about what my New Year’s resolutions will be, it’s easy to think about the things I would love to change in my life: my appearance, my level of happiness, and my ability to keep my closet clean . While these things are worth being on my resolution list, I’m quick to think about how often I have failed at these things—how my New Year’s resolutions of years’ past have never quite turned out. I don’t know if I have the power right now to change these things.
Even if I did have the power, I would question my choices of what I want to change. These are things that I want to see change, not necessarily what God wants me to change. But, if Christ is truly the author of transformation, then His Word would be exploding with suggestions.
It is exploding, to say the least.
Think about the Garden. Think about the Fall of Man and then think about how God then said He would send His son to reconcile the Fall. Think about Abraham. Think about Sarah and Abraham’s blunders. Think about how God blessed them anyway. Think about King David, and how after confessing his sins, the Lord still continued to claim David as a man after His heart. Think about Judas and how Jesus washed his feet. Think about Peter or Paul. Think about yourself. Think about how the throne of grace is exactly what it says it is: a throne we approach to “receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Think about the Lost Son, who, after rebelling against his father, lost everything and then returned home to work as a slave. Think about how the son resolved to be a servant and how his father dumped buckets of grace upon him, his Beloved.
The Bible is story of a redemption, transformation and salvation. It’s about finding grace. It’s about New Year’s resolutions.
In Isaiah, the Lord makes clear several things to His people: “Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow…” (Isa. 1:18)
So, if there were anything I would want this next year to be, I pray that I’ll take a hint of what my Lord wants me to change, not what I, a sinner, want. May we search to know the heart of God and then continue to change until we look like Him.
