Every year, probably since I was a teenager, I have determined to do better in the New Year.  You know - to do something or not do something, or to do something more or to do something less.  It’s the same good New Year’s routine we can all fall into, because we desire to change for the better! 

    I remember one year when my kids were 3, 6, and 8, I decided I should be running every weekday morning (a 3 mile loop).  As parents of young children find out - it’s the kids who should decide your New Years resolutions. This is because it is their lives that seem to rule the family schedule.  So needless to say that New Years improvement idea flopped. 

    Another New Years resolution I used to make quite often but don’t any more, is to get super organized and stay that way.  Now, I don’t mind getting things organized.  I actually enjoy it.  However the problem was, I would get things nicely organized but I didn’t keep them that way. Now, this should have been OK if I had any sense at all, because things were getting neater and cleaner. Yet, I have this personality where I hate to leave a thing undone, which is good most the time except when it causes me to mentally stew about something undone. This obsessing ended up killing the peace God offers.  Can you relate?

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness (peace), everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Philippians 4:6-7 (The Message)

    Yet, I have grown older and wiser in the Lord and I don’t bother with those compulsive New Years resolutions anymore, if I can help it.  I now try to do what God tells me to do in Ecclesiastes 5:18, which is to relax and enjoy the life He has given! Remembering this life is but a vapor and things staying cleaned are less than that.

    What sort of New Years resolutions would God want you to make? What kind would He endorse?  To answer those questions quickly - any New Years resolution that sees eye to eye with His Word (His will) is the type God wants you to make. In the rest of this devotion I will answer those questions with some down to earth humor and of course Biblical insights.

    God doesn’t mind at all if you want to – start a play group to get to know your neighbors better, walk 2 miles a day, limit your internet, go back to college, learn to play the harpsichord, read all of C. S. Lewis’s books, take a scrap book class, paint your house that purple color you have always loved, buy a hammock so you will relax more, travel to a place that doesn’t have bathroom facilities, play on a tennis team, save and buy that sports car you could never have until your 5 kids grew up, eat more veggies and so on.  Yet, we need to remember, physical stuff has some worth but godliness or godly living has value for our present life as well as for our life in eternity. I would say that’s a wow principle concerning godly living!  What do you think? So let’s make New Years resolutions that count towards godly living first!

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance and for this we labor and strive... 1 Timothy 4:8-10a (NIV)

    We need to also keep in mind our true problems as Christians stem from an obstinate heart towards God, not a lack of self-improvement.  This is because those problems are sins.

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.  James 4:17 (NASB)

    Just a little reminder, as Christians we are never separated from God because of sin! This is because Jesus’ death on the cross erased our sins as if we had never committed them. His death literally cleansed us from any and every sin we have and will commit. However sin is a very serious problem because it affects our relationship with God!  Sin disrupts our rapport with God similar to when a teenager is disobedient towards her parent.  I am sure parents with rebellious teenagers can relate to what God takes from us (me included), when we are determined to do our own thing.

    Sin also makes you very immature and unfruitful for God.  Many in the church in Corinth that Paul writes to in 1 and 2 Corinthians still had worldly thinking and behavior.  They were Christians because they had believed in Jesus Christ but they were not very spiritual. 

But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ,
capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more.  As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way? 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (The Message)

I think Paul was trying to shame them into some life-changing New Years resolutions with that comment!  What do you think?

    They were called infants in Christ, because they weren’t concerned about a life of sanctification. Sanctification calls for a change of attitude and action from our old way of life to God’s. And it’s pretty clear they didn’t seem to want to bother. It just makes sense as a Christian, when you make New Years resolutions you need to make them from what God wants changed instead of what you want.  

Below are four life applications to help you make New Years resolutions that promote godly living and change. 

1)      Make getting familiar with God’s Word a priority this year.  Yet, don’t just be a listener of it but a doer!  

So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word… Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God…even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action. James 1:21-25 (The Message)

Remember, it is God’s Word that instructs you in what is important to God, so you will know what the best resolutions are for this New Year of your life.  

An idea on how to get truly familiar with God’s Word: Buy a Bible you can easily write in. The type that has room in the margins to write, and ink doesn’t bleed through to the other page.  Prayerfully ask God each day as you read a verse, or a chapter, or the whole book, what does He want you to learn from it and apply to your life?  Write the insights that the Holy Spirit has given you in the margins.  A thought - A few years back I started going through the Bible with a friend.  We divide each book sensibly thinking of our time and then get together after we have personally studied the passage to discuss it. Sometimes it is just chapters and other times it is the whole book. This keeps us disciplined so we will be doing our resolution to read through the Bible.  

2)  The second thing follows the first, which is to rely on or trust in God and His Word, so the Holy Spirit can guide and empower you to do His will this year. 

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength…Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Ephesians 3:16-20 (The Message)

An idea on how to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you through His Word:  As you go about your year, mentally ask the Holy Spirit to use His Word to guide you moment by moment. I know some of you are thinking, “For heaven sakes, He lives within me, isn’t He already guiding me?” You are right; the Holy Spirit indwells all Christians.  Yet, not all Christians let the Spirit control them. Since God gave us all a free will, even as Christians we can tell the Spirit within us “I’ll do that, not You!” This means our sinful nature is in control.  If I don’t constantly keep the mindset, “I need God to guide me,” my sinful nature can cause havoc throughout any given year.  What’s your sinful nature been up to? LINK TO Lesson 4  

You, my brothers (and sisters), were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love…So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want…The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit… Galatians 5:13-25 (NIV)

3)  Ask God to make prayer as natural as breathing is to you this year.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Eph.  6:18 (NIV)

You need to remember communication with God or anyone has two components which are listening and responding.   You listen to God by allowing Him to speak through His Word.   You respond to God by talking to Him.  How do you make praying as natural as breathing?  Well, it doesn’t mean you need to go about your day trying to say stuff that sounds spiritual to God.  God doesn’t want your relationship with Him to be surface and phony.  His heart’s desire is for you to consistently talk with Him, and to do it with honesty and openness, as you would with a trusted friend. He also wants you to desire to talk with Him, as you would someone you love.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2 (NIV) 

An idea on how to become more comfortable with praying: Make a special date with God this year, by planning to spend a half a day in prayer.   On my website under the section prayer resources - is a booklet on, “how to spend a half of day in prayer (link to)”.  It can be easily copied. The booklet is just a guide to give you a general structure for your time of prayer.  It also will give you some insights into daily prayer.

4)      Make this a year where you will agree with God about your sins (confession), instead of fighting Him by disagreeing with Him.

As Christians, we will sin because we still have our sinful nature, but we have a choice now. (Before salvation we didn’t.) When you are tempted to sin, don’t take that sin or any sin lightly; remember what sin does and what Jesus Christ had to do to take care of that sin! When the Holy Spirit is telling you through God’s Word that something is sin, don’t do it.   If you have gone on and done the sin, then heaven sakes, confess it or agree with God about it. Confessing your sins is the grandest and easiest way God could give you to be so quickly close to Him again!   

… I've thrown in my lot with you, God, and I'm not budging. Examine me, God, from head to foot, order your battery of tests. Make sure I'm fit inside and out.   So I never lose sight of your love, but keep in step with you, never missing a beat. Psalms 26:1b-3 (The Message)

If you won’t agree with God about your sin, you are saying to God, “I don’t believe you are correct about me being in sin. I don’t want to be close to You.  I want to walk alone in darkness away from You.”  Sounds irreverent and crazy and it is!

This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there's not a trace of darkness (sin) in him. If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark (sin), we're obviously lying through our teeth—we're not living what we claim.  But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light…as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin. If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.  On the other hand, if we admit (confess) our sins…he won't let us down; he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.  If we claim that we've never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God. 1 John 1:5-10 (The Message)

An idea on how to agree with God about your sins:  Make a New Years resolution that you will beseech God daily to search your heart and mind for any sin, if you don’t already do it.   Read Psalm 139:23-24 and memorize it.

Dear sisters and brothers, this New Year let’s pray for each other to live for our God and Savior…keeping our eyes on the joys of eternity!  Because of Him, Gini

So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. (in heaven) …The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (The Message)