New Year, new you. Probably not. Let’s be real: you are not going to change much in the next year. I know this because I’m ordained, God likes me a lot and I’m still the same old person I was last year at this time. Okay, maybe I stretched the God likes me a whole lot part but I am ordained and that has to count for something, right?
Solomon said it was all vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2). In other words the more things change the more they stay the same, and you can’t really do much about it. If you lose weight in 2021 you will probably gain it back. If you start to exercise you will stop and if you try to be nice you will end up frustrated.
What if we stopped grinding our teeth and biting our tongue. See, the problem is not keeping quiet, the problem is what’s in the heart. When we get the heart right the mouth problem will take care of itself.
A lot of Christians are trying to get better, but a better what? A better version of their old selves? And what does that even mean? That we are better at hiding behind the mask—literally—in 2020? Better at applying the veneer? Better at acting like we’re better? Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that working for you?”
Getting better, or at least the idea of getting better, really drives us away from Jesus and sends us to ourselves (the flesh is weak, Mark 14:38). Grace which comes in a one-size-fits-all is radical in its nature and grace makes getting better irrelevant.
Ken, doesn’t the New Year matter and isn’t setting goals a good thing? You bet! I’m a list maker and I have already written down several New Year’s resolutions. But here’s the deal: change in the New Year will be less about you and more about Him. John said it like this, “I must decrease so that He might increase” (less of me in 2021 and more of Him, John 3:30).
My famous pastor friend tells me that when getting better no longer matters to us it is then that we will get better. But we will get better from the inside out and we won’t even be able to help it (it will be a God-thing). See getting better happens when we stop trying and start trusting.
When we get real with Jesus, we get real. When it’s dark at night and we’re alone and we’re honest and we admit our way has stopped being effective, fireworks go off and hope is created and there is a mic drop in Heaven.
The Apostle Paul told the Church at Philippi that God who began a good work in us will continue that work until we see Jesus face to face (Philippians 1:6). Think about that.
Who is doing the work? Who can we have confidence in? Who is continually faithful to us? We just have to sit still for the Artist. Happy New Year!
He told me to tell you that.
P.S. Make this a resolution: Be still and know He is God (Psalm 46:10).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
—John 3:16
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