Jan 03, 2025 A Resolution for Those United to Christ- Words of Grace – January 3, 2025
At this time every year, we can count on another round of posts and podcasts telling us how to make and keep New Year’s resolutions. And we fall for it again. With renewed inspiration, we resolve again to start, stop, change, or adjust something that will make us better people. Sometime before spring the initial enthusiasm wanes and by mid-year, we’re done. Round and round we go in the cycle of making and breaking resolutions. Didn’t someone call this the definition of insanity?
The above description of resolution-making and breaking is why many people don’t bother with them at all. Who needs another reason to feel like a failure?
I have been thinking about resolutions this week while meditating on Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That sounds like a resolution to me. It also reminds me of the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.
Edwards was an American pastor of the Puritan tradition in the 18th century. At the age of nineteen, he wrote seventy resolutions that would guide his life-long pursuit of God. As I read his resolutions this week, I was struck by how different they are from mine.
I tend to make resolutions that put me in the “don’t break the streak” mentality. Whatever I resolve to do or not do, I find myself keeping a record of how long I do or don’t do it. Then, when I break the streak, I’m done.
Edwards didn’t write his resolutions like that. He resolved to live by principles, not by record-setting. A resolution for Edwards was not about doing some activity for self-improvement for 3, 30, or 365 days in a row. His resolutions were designed to set his whole life before God, to develop ways of thinking and patterns for living that brought him into greater enjoyment of God and usefulness to others.
Edwards’ resolution #1 stated his main goal in life. He resolved to do what he believed would bring the most glory to God, would be most beneficial to his spiritual health, was in keeping with his spiritual duties as a Christian, and would bring the most good to humanity. He resolved to do this in all circumstances regardless of how difficult.
This resolution was designed to set his life in the direction of God, not set a record of personal achievement. His resolution was not measured by successive days, but by ongoing growth in the enjoyment of God and usefulness in service. Failure one day did not end the resolution “streak”. It provided the opportunity to repent and receive fresh grace to renew the resolve and move on in Christ.
I can imagine that Edwards made his resolutions based on Bible verses like Colossians 3:17.
As men and women “in Christ”, brought into union with his death to sin and resurrection life to God, we now have a new resolve to do everything in word and deed in the name of Jesus our Lord. This verse is our resolution for each new day of each new year for as long as we live. Let’s resolve together in 2025.
-Scott