New Year’s Resolutions

Well, the New Year just started and already it is one twelfth over. I’ve hardly had a chance to begin on my new year’s resolutions and already the first month has passed into history. It really is amazing how the years accelerate with age. I hardly get the last of the Christmas decorations put away when low and behold its advent again.

So what were your new year’s resolutions? Anything outlandish like, travel around the world or sail to Tahiti? Or were yours like mine—lose weight, pray more, read the Bible in a year and be better in certain areas? These are all good goals – and I am certainly in favor of setting goals. I’ve lost a couple pounds—although I feel like as long as I don’t weigh more in December than I did in January—while I may not be moving in the right direction—at least I am not moving in the wrong direction. I’ve been a little more consistent in prayer but I just finished my 2008 read through the Bible on 2/1/09 so I’m already a month behind my goal for 2009; but I’ll catch up.

New Year’s Resolutions are good, so are goals and so are self-help books and motivational materials but as I said in my sermon last Sunday the real goal of the Christian life is Holiness and for that there really is no self-help formula. Rather there is only the daily prayer that Jesus taught us (lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Matt. 6:13) and the daily struggle to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”(Philippians 2:12).

Working towards a holiness of life is a process that requires us to listen to the Holy Spirit and yield to his leading and conviction in our lives. This is the way that we are changed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18) and are gradually transformed into the image and likeness of Christ (Col. 3:10). In order to accomplish this St. Paul instructs us to put away certain sinful behaviors; i.e. anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language, lying and old deeds (Col. 3:8). These are the kinds of negative behaviors that we need to put off, or crucify.

St. Peter on the other hand gives us a list of positive attributes—things to put on. I think of them as building blocks toward holy living. In 2 Peter 1:5 St. Peter admonishes us to, “add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. “
I find that these two lists (and others like them in the Bible) are far more useful for practicing holiness that any self help book or new year’s resolution. I come back to these lists again and again. I ask myself if I am putting away the negatives and if I am gaining in the positives. And I try to determine where the Holy Spirit is trying to deal with me at various times throughout the year.
I encourage you to do the same thing. Read these passages and meditate on them. Don’t rush through them, stop and linger. Let the Holy Spirit do His work. He may want to spend the whole year just on filthy language; or He might be working on self control. Even when he convicts you of these things, rarely can you cast them off and claim immediate victory. I always remember John Wesley who all of his life struggled with a fear of, and obsession with death. It was not until near the close of his life that he could say that his old enemy had lost its teeth.

If you read through 2 Peter 1:5 too quickly you will miss the point. It will only be academic to you, not personal. I suggest that we use this passage and others like it to allow God the Holy Spirit to convict and deal with certain areas of our lives. Maybe instead of a resolution to lose weight we should have a conviction to learn self control; instead of a resolution to take a course or get a degree we could have a passion to add a knowledge of God and the things of God.

Remember that Christ did not come to make us better; he came to re-make us into his image. To that end we must allow His word to dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16). Meditate on these passages and seek His guidance, and remember—Lent is just around the corner.
Blessings. Fr. Martin +