Resolutions are like water off a ducks back. They bead up on the oily resistance of our habits and roll off of the feather weight of our existence. We really don’t have the ability to make change that counts for eternity. We may do that which is good, by common grace, for our neighbor or environment, but still wrongly intentioned.
So why even talk about resolutions or trying at all? The reason is The Enabler, the Holy Spirit, Who lives inside of those who have and habitually submit to Him.
Is this enabling just for the perfect and privileged? No, it is for all who feel a deep desire, ultimately given by the same Enabler, to make change.
And how is this enabling obtained and practiced? It starts with submission to the Son in salvation of the soul and continues in a renewing of that submission as life goes along. Jesus came to save sinners from rebellions and omissions past, present, and future, but He also came in order for those sinners to do what is right in God’s sight. As is says in Romans 8:3-4: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
My resolve then for this coming year is not by my own puny strength which will fade or become puffed up with some level of success, but “divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Corinthians 10:4; check out verses 3-6).
How do I access that kind of power? Yesterday morning in church after hearing a sermon on how Christ is better than all other ways to God and enables us to live victoriously, I wanted to conclude the service with the following hymn by James Fillmore:
- I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world’s delight,
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.
- Refrain:
I will hasten to Him,
Hasten so glad and free;
Jesus, greatest, highest,
I will come to Thee.
- I am resolved to go to the Savior,
Leaving my sin and strife;
He is the true One, He is the just One,
He hath the words of life.
- I am resolved to follow the Savior,
Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth,
He is the living Way.
- I am resolved to enter the kingdom,
Leaving the paths of sin;
Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me,
Still will I enter in.
- I am resolved, and who will go with me?
Come, friends, without delay;
Taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit,
We’ll walk the heav’nly way.
I settled for singing one verse and refrain with two sisters from the choir. I hope it will set a tone for my life and theirs and yours in the coming year, that God’s power might wet our most stubborn, bad habits until they are washed away and fire our weak resolve into weighty ballast of the soul for God and His kingdom.
Read Full Post »
CreatorWorship 