When you get better

Christmas is quickly fading into my rear-view mirror as I think about the New Year. Let me encourage you, 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 2024 you will probably gain it back. If you start to exercise you will stop. 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? Better at applying the veneer? Better at acting like we’re better? “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 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 have already written down several New Year’s resolutions. 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 2024 and more of Him, John 3:30).

My famous pa stor friend tells me that when getting better no longer matters to us it is then that we 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 o ff a nd 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 long enough for Jesus to sand off the rough edges. I’m not sure if I should say Merry Christmas or Happy New Year!

He told me to tell you that.