By this date many of you have already stated to act on your New Year resolution list whether written down or mental.
As far as I know there is nothing in the Bible that prohibits a Christian form making New Year resolutions. There is nothing wrong with desiring change for the good in our lives. As Christians with God being the focus, the motivation and purpose for everything we do, our New Year’s resolutions will reflect this. Wikipedia says, “A New Year’s resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous.”
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
How many of your resolutions for 2020 are included on the list below? How many New Year resolutions have you made in the past that are on this list that you tried to keep but were not successful?
The following are the ten most common New Year resolutions that Americans make.
- Spend More Time with Family & Friends 6. Get A Better Job
- Lose Weight 7. Get Fit
- Get Out Of Debt 8. Eat Right
- Become More Organized 9. Get A Better Education
- Save Money 10. Quit Smoking
The famous American theologian Jonathan Edwards, author of the well-known sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” who was brought up in New England Puritan culture, wrote seventy resolutions that he tried to live by and fulfill. He did not write his resolutions on a single day. Rather, during a two-year period when he was about nineteen or twenty following his graduation from Yale in 1722. He compiled these resolutions on various aspects of his life, which he committed to reviewing each week.
As Christians, how many of our New Year resolutions involve God’s will for our lives and God’s Biblical principles? How many of us even think about our New Year resolution list as did Jonathan Edwards said in the in the first sentence of his long list of resolutions. “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.”
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:13
When making our New Year resolutions are we at all thinking what God has to say about them? Note what Jonathan Edwards wrote in just the first ten of his seventy resolutions.
Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.
- Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
- Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the forementioned things.
- Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
- Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
- Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
- Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
- Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
- Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. Vid. July 30, [1723].
- Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
- Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.
Did you notice that only three of Jonathan Edwards’ first ten resolutions mention God? When God is the center of our lives He will even be in the the motivation of a resolution as simple as number six of Jonathan Edwards’ list.
When God is the center of our lives because we are living in the reality and experiencing what Jesus said is “the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:38). We also will be loving God as Jesus said “…with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37), or in other words, loving God with our whole being. As a result, our sincere desire will always be to live a life that will glorify Him and that our lives would express His will in and for our lives. This sincere desire will also influence and be expressed in the New Year resolutions we make.
5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
1 John 2:5-6, NLT
Are our New Year resolutions only about “us”, which is, only what we want to achieve in our lives? Or are they about fulfilling God’s will for our lives and how God is exemplified in our lives to others in our character and by what we do?
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13
Pastor John
