All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24)The new year is only a week old and already showing its age.
How many resolutions did you break already. Why did you even bother?
There is actually a good reason for bothering. It is the innate nature of humanity to try to be better. That is one reason why colleges exist, why people want promotions, why people play sports, why they do almost everything.
We are not happy with things standing still. Most people, if they own a house, keep on fixing it up through the years, making it nicer. On a pretty day, you will see people washing and waxing their cars, wanting them to look better. Go to the mall and there are a whole bunch of people who just want to look better, more stylish.
It is no wonder that we sit down every January 1 with pen in hand and try to figure out ways to become better. It is our nature to do so.
But, it is also our nature to fail. It is a glitch in the machinery. It showed up first when Adam and Eve disobeyed the one command God gave them. One thing wrong and they had to mess it up for everybody else.
So it is also no wonder that after we have sat down on January 1 and wrote a bunch of high sounding stuff down to make ourselves better that by January 2 we have already broken 16 of them. All of our good intentions, it seems, down the toilet.
But not really. As long as we try, that is the point. The writing of the stuff down seems a bit foolish, but we need to do it.
As I wrote last week we need to work at forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, and then we can press on toward the goal. (Philippians 3:12-14)
The goal will not attain itself. We have to do something. God will not drop holiness down on us like a net over a gorilla. It is a reciprocal thing. After all he created us for good works (Ephesians 2:10).
When we try better, we will win. He will help us win.
We may not lose 175 pounds this year or work toward a marathon or even write that set of commentaries. We have trouble losing ten pounds.
But with him, all things are possible (Mark 9:23)
Even getting rid of procrastination in my life. I will do that this year if I can get around to it.
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