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Resolutions for the New Year
By Pastor Fred Greco | December 30, 2006
We are about to enter a new year shortly, the year of our Lord 2007. While this new year is not as distinct as when the new Millennium came around in 2000 (or even when a new decade begins, as will happen in 2010), the beginning of a new year is a good opportunity to take stock of where you are in your Christian walk. It is a perfect time to take an assessment of your daily habits, and the opportunities you have to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). If you are anything like me, you are struck by how much more you should read the Bible, pray, encourage others, and the like. In fact, when we engage in serious introspection, it can be overwhelming to see how often we fall short of the high calling of God in Christ (2 Tim. 1:8-9). There is a very real sense in which this kind of challenge is good for us – to be spurred on to prayer, obedience, and faith. But at the same time, there are two twin pitfalls we must avoid:
- Focusing on past failings to the point of despair. Whenever we review the past, especially at a time like the turning of a new year, a strong temptation is to focus upon what we have left undone in the past. We look at a Bible reading plan like those Pastor Carroll has mentioned, and we only see a wasted year. “Oh, how much Bible we could have read! How many opportunities left behind!” The irony is, that while such language sounds very pious, it can often be the whisperings of the evil one, who seeks to discourage us. Sure, many of us (including yours truly) have not done what we intended to do on January 1, 2006. It is also a Biblical truth that all of us have failed to do all that is required of us. None of us is free from sins of omission.* But at the same time, the Lord does not desire our focus to be on past failings that we cannot change. Paul expresses this well in Philippians 3:13-14. (pull)”forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”(/pull)
- Focusing on how far there is for us to go, so we give up. When we look forward to a new year, it can be much like the start of a long journey. We have “miles to go before we sleep” and sometimes the road looks so long that we don’t think we can make it. We would much rather just sit back on the couch and avoid the whole thing. We make up all sorts of excuses – “I just don’t have the gift of prayer,” or “I don’t have that kind of perservance,” or even “that’s for really advanced Christians.” This is another way that Satan whispers lies to us: “Just rest here a minute. Does it really matter if you do…? Don’t be legalistic about prayer or Bible reading!” We need to remember that the longest journey begins with a single step, and that the Lord has promised to aid us in the long journey. In fact, if we look at the coming year as just one small part of the Christian life (a marathon, not a sprint!) that can encourage us. It is like breaking up a large task into sizable chunks. We can rejoice in each partial victory as we work toward the final goal.
Having said that, I would like to give some advice to you on things you can be thinking about doing this coming year. Maybe this will be the first time you ever attempted them. Maybe you have done them before, and you will try and do them better this year. In weeks to come, I will take each of these areas one by one, and try and give some resources and helpful hints. In any event, here are some ways to grow in the Lord in 2007:
- Read the Bible systematically throughout the year. This is the time to begin a Bible reading plan. There are literally dozens of them out there. You can read from Genesis to Revelation, OT/NT readings each day, chronologically, and just about every other way you can think of. You can have the reading emailed to you by an automated internet list, you can encourage your children to read and keep track of their progress, or you can use the famous Reading plan of 19th century Scottish Presbyterian minister Robert Murray McCheyne. There are even reading plans available on the ESV website, chronological or daily reading. You can visualize what these plans look like by going to this page on the ESV website. If reading the whole Bible in one year seems like too much (or if the daily readings seem too daunting), there is a simple solution – take two years! Half a Bible in a year is better than none. Simply divide up the readings for two years.
- Commit a certain portion of the day – even 5 minutes – to prayer. The best way to maintain any habit – whether exercise, homeschool teaching, or writing – is to find a specific time of the day and commit that time to it. You will need to find out what works best for you, because some are “morning people,” others are night-owls, and still others would find lunchtime the best. My suggestion is that you take one specific time that you believe will work, and start out small. Commit yourself to five minutes. Once you have had success in keeping that time (say, a couple of weeks), expand it to 10 minutes, then 15, and so on. Don’t start by saying, “I’ll spend one hour in prayer every day” if that has not been your practice. After a couple of weeks, you will likely have failed 90% of the time (been there, done that!) and then you will give up. Set yourself up to succeed initially, and then keep pushing yourself on.
- Have family worship. The practice of our forefathers that is perhaps the most neglected in our day is that of family worship. In days past, “every house was a church” and the head of the household was a minister in the home. As a practical matter, God is merciful, gracious and good to us every day, not just one in seven; it makes sense for us to acknowledge that and to praise Him for His goodness every day. What does that look like? It does not need to be complex – prayer, reading the Word, singing. Again, it could be 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. Much depends on the age of the children in the house. A house with many young children would be better served by a shorter period. Some families will find it better to gather in the morning, some at the dinner table, some just before bedtime.
- Try to find one way this year that you can be involved in outreach. This could be in your neighborhood, at work, in school, anywhere! It does not have to require an organization, or a commitment of time that will turn your life upside down. In fact, you may simply need to think more intentionally about the time you already spend with others.
- Try to find one way this year that you can serve the Church. If you are not actively involved in the ministry of the Church, now is the time to start to think about that. How can you serve others? By babysitting? By writing? By repairing someone’s home? By writing encouraging cards and letters (or even email !)? By serving on a committee? If you are already serving in many different areas (as many are), that does not mean you need to add one more. Start by thinking about how you can help others minister in the same area you are. Many hands makes the labor light. You can also think about how training someone to do what you are already doing will allow you to undertake a new area of ministry.
- Begin thinking pointedly about your manner of life. The
start of
a new year is the perfect time to challenge ourselves with respect to practices that we know in our hearts are not honoring to the Lord, and with respect to habits that we know we should take up. The famous pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards did something that you may want to do (even if you do it on a smaller scale): he wrote down a series of “Resolutions” that he desired to keep. When you read them, you can see a man who desired to honor God in all he did.
Let us all work together to encourage each other and run the race together. Let me know how I can help you.
*Sins of omission are those things that the Law of God requires us to do. Sins of commission are doing things God forbids.
Coming Lord’s Day
One of the best ways for us to encourage each other is by coming together to worship the Lord. This week we come together to hear God’s word and to come to His table. We will be looking at the pastoral warning that Paul gave to the Galatian church in Galatians 4:8-20, “A Pastor’s Plea: Don’t Look Back.” As we look back on the year, it will also be helpful to think about the faithfulness of the Lord to each one of us. To that end, we will be singing “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
The bulletin for this week can be found here. In the evening, we will come together and look forward to a new year of God’s grace, centered on Paul’s admonition to the church at Rome in Romans 13:11-14, “The Day is At Hand,” and then after the service we will have a time of food and fellowship.
Topics: Christian Life, Coming Lord's Day |