A New Year

A new year always seems to bring a promise of hope.  The new year marks a new beginning.  Maybe a chance to correct some mistakes.  In any event this is the time of year when we make promises to ourselves that we want to be a better person.  So we make resolutions in an attempt to better our lives.  I do not think I have ever heard someone make a resolution to be more lazy, self-centered, stingy, etc. . . (well maybe I have heard such resolutions but I was only joking about it).

Often we find it hard to keep resolutions to be a better person.  They begin with such hope and promise but soon we find that we are back to our old ways.  I think I have made the same resolution for the past 15 years.  We have great intentions to lose weight, read our Bible more, to save money, to spend more time with family but after a few months we discover that it is business as usual.  We find that we want to do the right thing but we don't do it, or that we want to stop doing the wrong thing, but we keep doing it.  This can be a frustrating dilemma.  It is the same struggle that Paul wrote about in Romans 7.  Paul discovered the answer to the dilemma is found Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the story of God's redemption of humanity.  It is the story of second chances and hope.  It is the story that opens the door to anyone who seeks to have a new beginning.  The word redemption means to be set free by the payment of a price.  Because Jesus died on a cross for our sins his blood paid the price for our freedom.  Jesus paid the price for our second chance.

The story of God's redemption is more than a resolution, it is a transformation.  The reason that resolutions fail is because will power alone is not enough to cause us to do the right things. . . to be a better person.  What we need is God's power in our lives to transform us.  God's transforming power comes to us in our intimate relationship with Him.  It is through this relationship with Jesus that He begins to transform us into the person He wants us to be.  In fact the Bible goes so far as to identify us as new creations in Christ.  WOW!  God's plan is to make me into a new creation.  I think this is much better than attempting to add a few good things in my life through resolutions.  I begin this journey of transformation through confession and surrender.

Father I confess that I have not lived in a manner that you have called me to live.  There are things that you desire to do differently in my life and I ask that you would transform me.  I surrender my life to you and ask you to use this life for your Kingdom in 2011.