How many of you are looking forward to 2023?  Last year brought a LOT of challenges!  We pray that the coming New Year will be an opportunity to leave the old behind and begin a New Year with a fresh start! In this New Year, what will be your New Years’ resolution?  Is there a bad habit that you need to stop? Are there new challenges that you would like to take on? The New Year gives us a chance for a fresh start!

The problem with our New Year’s resolutions is that we often fail!  We begin the New Year with a fresh start, but all too soon our failure reminds us of how difficult it is to change ourselves.  We see the truth in God's word, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10b-12)

A faithful resolution is to simply realize that on our own, we are powerless to change. However, by the power of the Holy Spirit we can be led to trust in the love of God through Jesus Christ. Why can we trust in this?  “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”  (Romans 5:6 ESV)   Our trust is not in our own strength, but in the power of God.  

A faithful New Year’s resolution is grounded in God’s solution for us in Jesus Christ! It was God’s resolution for us, to give us eternal victory for us over death. As we face trials in the New Year, we face them with the greatest resolution of all: God’s love for us in Jesus Christ!  Our resolution, then, is NOT one that we make (and fail to keep) our resolution is to receive God’s solution for us: our new life in Christ! 

God’s word of promise for you in the New Year, will enable you to be renewed and transformed.  "Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV)

God's Blessings in the New Year!

Pastor Maske