New Year’s Resolutions
December 27, 1998
Dear Friends,
This week will bring the advent of a new year -1999. I never thought I would live to see the year 1999 without first having seen the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For many people, a ritual of the new year is to have “New Year’s Resolutions.” Most times these include such things such as losing weight or exercising more. The resolutions are easily made, but not so easily kept.
Of course, there is nothing in the Bible about New Year’s Resolutions. The believers are to examine themselves daily and are commanded to do so each week at the Memorial Service. The purpose of this self-examination is to correct our faults. We all know it does no good to take a simple inventory of our faults during these times of self examination, make sure that we still have them and then get on with our week. The idea is to find them, ask God to forgive us for them and ruthlessly and fervently correct them in our lives. The point we need to keep in mind is that any time we seek to change our lives for the better is the perfect time to change!
I would offer this challenge to you at the beginning of 1999. Find three things in your life that you think of when the subject of self examination comes up. Three things that you are doing or are not doing that hinder your service to God. Write them down on a piece of paper. Approach our heavenly Father in prayer and ask His guidance and help in this endeavor. Tell someone you trust what you are doing and enlist their help. If they have the same problem, agree to help one another.
I would encourage you to pick the most difficult problems. Pick the problems you have procrastinated on for years. The problems that present you with the most difficulty are the things that will be most pleasing to Him if you change. The book of Proverbs gives us advice about things that we don’t like to do when it states ‘The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.” (Prov. 20:4).
I wish everyone the very best for the new year. May God bless you in your efforts to serve Him. May the Lord Jesus come before we see the coming of the next new year.
Have a great week!
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