2010 Resolutions
Posted on : 01-01-2010 | By : Dan | In : Engaging Culture, General Teachings, Living Your Faith
Tags: behavior, failure, new year, old Adam, repentance, resolutions, sinful nature, try
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Happy New Year! A new year is upon us, and resolutions have already been made – and broken. Why do we often fail at our resolutions? Why do we continually make more resolutions despite how often we fail at bringing them into fruition? I was reading my new devotional book yesterday and ran across this interesting quote:
Because you have been made a new person in Christ, the old Adam in you is not to be indulged, tolerated, or even reformed. The baptismal life calls for the mortification of your old Adam through daily contrition and repentance and the living of that new life that clings to Christ for the forgiveness of sins. (Treasury of Daily Prayer, p. 1445, emphasis mine).
I emphasized the words “or even reformed.” God calls us to mortify our old Adam, not modify it. The Bible commands us to “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Colossians 3:5, NIV). “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:13-14, NIV).
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:3-14, NIV, emphasis mine).
I think that the problem with most new years resolutions is that we are trying to reform our old Adam; we are trying to improve our flesh/sinful nature. The Bible tells us that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7, NIV, emphasis mine). We simply can’t improve our flesh. It will always resist our godly desires (see Romans 7:7-25). Our sinful flesh was crucified with Christ and then drowned in our Baptism. And we are called to daily kill the old Adam and live from our new hearts in Christ, our new nature. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).
This year don’t set resolutions in an attempt to reform your sinful nature. Set a resolution to live from your new heart in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ, live in that reality in 2010.


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