New Year’s Resolutions
Although many in our culture belittle the making of resolutions, it is my contention that resolutions can be extremely helpful, and especially in the life of a Christian. Without a doubt, resolutions, if approached the wrong way, can lead to rigid, legalistic law adherence; however, one ought not cast resolutions away because of their abusable nature (in this case we would have to throw out our abusable Bibles, money, and well… everything else that has the potential to be abused). Resolutions can be an appropriate way of refocusing our energy, intellect, and time on what is most important. And although I believe that Christians should make resolutions every morning before they roll out of bed, resolving to live their every moment to the glory of God, it can be invaluable to, from time to time, prayerfully resolve to get back on track in one area of life or another.
Every Christian has their own unique struggles–some struggle with prayer, others with bible study, others with evangelism, others with temper, etc. I can tell you that my greatest personal struggle at this point in my life is with evangelism. I feel that this New Year provides me a fresh start at fearing God more than man, loving man enough to put my reputation and comfort on the line to tell them about God and what He has done for sinners like me through His Son, Jesus.
For those of you who struggle with Bible reading, let me suggest to you a certain bible reading program that both Kristal and I have found extremely profitable. We have found that mustering up the discipline to read the Bible is much easier than mustering up the energy needed to read with intentionality and focus. So, about a year ago we made up our own Bible reading program. We decided that we were going to read two chapters a day, starting in Genesis going right straight through to Revelation. To aid our ‘intentionality’ and ‘focus’ issues we decided to make up a list of four questions that we had to answer (in 1 to 2 sentences) after reading each chapter.
Here are the questions:
1. List at least one thing that I learned from this chapter (or from a verse or set of verses within the chapter):
2. List at least one question that I cannot at this point answer about this chapter (or one question about a verse or set of verses within the chapter):
3. List one thing that this chapter (or a verse or a set of verses within this chapter) reveals about God.
4. List one way in which this chapter (or a verse or set of verses within this chapter) can be applied to my life.
We have found that answering these four questions has helped us not read the Bible like mere drones, mindlessly performing the duty of Bible reading. Answering these questions requires full attention, meditation, and reflection.
You will find that some chapters of the Bible make answering these four questions quite difficult. The purpose is not necessarily to always have a great answer for each of the questions, but rather to simply stimulate the mind and heart to at least attempt an answer so that your reading of the word is not merely mechanical. Anyway, I hope that this will be as much help to some of you as it has been to Kristal and I.
And the most wonderful thing about being a Christian is that if you fail to uphold your New Year’s resolutions, you do not have to wait until January 1, 2011 to start it up again.
While I was at college I was holding one of my friends accountable to reading the Bible on a daily basis. One night we went to a basketball game that was being held on campus. While at the game I asked him how his Bible reading was going. He ashamedly said, “I was lazy this morning. I just couldn’t get out of bed. I totally blew it.” I responded to him, “What are you talking about?! It is only 8 pm; you still have like 4 hours before you go to bed.”
The most important thing to remember regarding resolutions is that we do not need a certain time or day to pick up where we left off.
I must warn, however, that the greatest danger in making resolutions is making our perfect performance in keeping these resolutions the center of our joy and assurance when our joy and assurance should be coming from the perfect performance of Christ (including both his life and cross work).
I would like to draw your attention to an article written by Burke Parsons (at the Ligonier blog) on the topic of resolutions. I found it to be quite good. Click here to read it.
Oh yeah, and I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds in 2010 either.
