If Jesus Writes Our New Year's Resolutions

The ritual of making New Year’s Resolutions is embedded in our culture, but it can seems like a superficial exercise that gives rise to self-deprecating jokes rather than real change.
If you’re ready to reject the custom as trivial or unhelpful, here’s a thought: turn the task over to Jesus. The Bible is, among other things, the best ever source for New Year’s resolutions. In the words of Jesus alone, we find enough material to motivate us to be better people for a century’s worth of new years. Here are a few familiar, but we hope inspirational, resolutions borrowed from our Master’s own words.

• I resolve to love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind (Matt. 22:37).
• I resolve to try always to worship the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:23).
• I resolve to try to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23).
• I resolve to do to others whatever I wish they would do to me (Matt. 7:12).
• I resolve to try to love my neighbor as I love myself (Mark 12:31).
• I resolve to try to love my enemies and to pray for those who persecute me (Matt. 6:44).
• I resolve to try always to notice the log in my own eye before looking for the speck in my brother’s (Luke 6:41).
• I resolve to try to put myself last of all and be a servant of all, believing that in doing so I will please Jesus (Mark 9:35).
• I resolve to go to Jesus when I am weary and burdened, to take his yoke, so that I will find rest in my soul (Matt. 11:28-29).
• I resolve to hear the word of Jesus and believe Him who sent Jesus, so that I can have eternal life (John 5:24).

There’s more, of course, and not just the words of Jesus: “All scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16).
If we’re willing to trust the alchemy of God’s Spirit acting on our spirits, those Word-based New Year’s resolutions will produce dynamic change.