New Year’s Resolution
Have you noticed how hard it is to follow through on a New Year’s resolution? Why do you typically quit? You could argue that “life” got in the way (vacation, celebrations, sickness, weather, etc). What if I told you that the reason for a failed New Year’s resolution is simply this: failure to establish a healthy, daily habit.
If you want to grow in your faith and become more like the Lord Jesus Christ in 2024, there are some basic mistakes to avoid when making your resolution.
Mistake number one is a bar that’s been set too high. If your New Year’s resolution was to get into peak physical shape, would you start with high intensity interval training and heavy weight training seven days a week? The answer is no for two reasons. The first is difficulty level and the second is injury risk. If you did manage to exercise seven days a week at that level, the soreness would be extreme, and you would be on pace to injure yourself. This is called setting the bar too high.
Mistake number two is setting the bar too low. Let’s say you want to read 100 books, averaging 400 pages, in a year. If you decided to read 10 pages a day, you would quickly become discouraged. As soon as you realize that you can’t complete your goal by year’s end, giving up seems that much easier.
When it comes to our spiritual goals in 2024, we need to take these mistakes into consideration. If you want to avoid giving up on your New Year’s resolution, consider making Psalm 139: 23-24 your healthy daily habit.
“23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
King David was an extremely busy man. He not only had to lead his family but also care for an entire nation both politically and spiritually. The average christian’s schedule doesn’t come close to matching that of King David’s. If he prioritized spending time with God daily (Psalms 86, 88), we ought to take notice and follow the example. The man after God’s own heart, inspired by the Holy Spirit, left us a blueprint to follow.
- Spend time in prayer with God every morning (Psalm 5)
- Ask God to search and test you spiritually for any presence of sin in your heart (Psalm 139)
- Ask God to reveal that sin and ask for forgiveness (Psalm 25)
- Ask God to lead you that day in “the way everlasting”, His perfect way (Psalm 139)
The spiritual heart of a person is often compared to a garden throughout scripture (Matt 13). If you leave a garden alone for a month, what will happen? Weeds. In our sin fallen world, a garden left unkept will be quickly overrun with weeds. Our hearts are much the same. If we put off time with God for days, weeks, even months, the weeds of sin in our lives are bound to take root and eventually overrun our spiritual self. We become the person displaying the works of the flesh rather than producing the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5).
If your spiritual New Year’s resolution for 2024 is to be more like the person in Galatians 5: 22-25, to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ, follow this simple, healthy, daily habit and watch the fruit grow!