New Years Resolutions

New Years Resolutions

Well, we’ve survived the holidays. Well, at least I have and if you’re reading this, I guess that’s a pretty good indicator that you have as well.
I was talking to a friend on New Years Day and told him my idea for this blog, and he thought it was a good idea. So here we go.
I was thinking about what people traditionally do on New Years Day…make a resolution for the coming year. I quit making resolutions years ago because I very seldom, if ever, kept them. As I was reading my Bible on New Years Eve, I found myself in James (I love the book of James). A passage in James chapter 4 just jumped out at me, proving once again that the Bible is the “Living Word of God”. This passage starts in verse 13, and goes through verse 16. He says:
(13) Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
(14) Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
(15) Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
(16) But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make a New Years resolution, but that if we do feel that we need to make a resolution that we should consider these words in James. After all, how many of us have experienced the passing of a loved one unexpectedly? Or a tragedy of some kind that in the blink of an eye, changed life as we knew it? Those resolutions made were probably never fulfilled. You may ask now, “What difference does it make”. Well, in verse 16 it says, “But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil”. James 4:6 says that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 tells us to “Abstain from every form of evil”.
I can hear it now. Somebody’s gonna say, “Andy said that if we make a New Years resolution that we are arrogant and boasting”. Well, no. The Bible says that, and I stand in agreement with the word of God. What causes most of the resolutions that I’ve made in my past to be arrogant, and boasting is the fact that I resolved to do these things by my own will, and in my own power, leaving God out of the equation. Standing on my own…if you will. I now know that the only place I can stand is on The Rock…in Christ Jesus.
So, with this new revelation, I have decided to make a New Years resolution this year. My resolution is that, if the Lord wills, I will live and become better at this blog and that I will reach out and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere I go, whether in the natural world, the spiritual world, or in cyberspace.
I encourage you all to revise your New Years resolutions to line up with the word of God. Our Father God loves you and wants to be included in every aspect of your life.

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