Better Than A Resolution
Generally speaking, New Year's resolutions are not worth the breath it takes to utter them. Most don't last two weeks, and at six weeks they are all but extinct.
What tends to be more beneficial is to take time at the close of the year to give thought to the choices that we made in our spiritual lives and the results they produced. Some of us do that in our professional lives or our finances, but we don't usually think about our spiritual lives in such practical terms. But we can. When we do, we are seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, something that Jesus said significantly affects the other two (Matthew 6:33).
Let's use Ephesians 4:1-3 as our passage to work from for 2024.
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
At the end of the year, you will have 52 entries in your journal by which you can track the change in your life that resulted from meditating on this passage of Scripture. You will have hidden God's Word in your heart so that you sinned against Him less, and in the process you will have grown in Christlikeness and gotten to know God better.
What tends to be more beneficial is to take time at the close of the year to give thought to the choices that we made in our spiritual lives and the results they produced. Some of us do that in our professional lives or our finances, but we don't usually think about our spiritual lives in such practical terms. But we can. When we do, we are seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, something that Jesus said significantly affects the other two (Matthew 6:33).
Let's use Ephesians 4:1-3 as our passage to work from for 2024.
"I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
- Make a quality decision to read the passage out loud every day. (A quality decision is one that you actually plan to keep and make the necessary preparations to do so). It's best to do it around the same time each day.
- After reading the passage, ask God to help you:
- Be humble rather than act in pride
- Respond in gentleness rather than in harshness
- Choose to be patient rather than become impulsive or demanding
- Bear with people who get on your nerves, treating them with kindness
- Protect the harmony of the family of God
- Each Sunday evening, set an alarm to remind you to review the week on the basis of those five things. Write down how you did. Be as specific as time allows.
At the end of the year, you will have 52 entries in your journal by which you can track the change in your life that resulted from meditating on this passage of Scripture. You will have hidden God's Word in your heart so that you sinned against Him less, and in the process you will have grown in Christlikeness and gotten to know God better.
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