Every year, people around the world make New Year’s resolutions to reach their goals, improve their health, and better their lives. Many people are successful at keeping their resolutions, while many others fail. In fact, statistics show that only 9-12% of people who make New Years resolutions are successful in keeping them. They are resolving that next year will be the year they finish that diet, the year that they finish that project, or that they finally do what they’ve been putting off for so long, when, in reality, their resolutions often make it no further than January before they are forgotten or pushed aside. Sadly, there are often things in our walk with God that share the same fate as those resolutions. Are there things that we set out to do in the kingdom of God, but somewhere along the way, they were pushed aside for other things that take precedence? What would my statistic be? Did I do everything I could to witness to the lost, or did I relax a little and not pursue my purpose and calling? Did I place the things of God in high priority, or did the cares of life overshadow them? Did I come to the house of God to worship with everything I had to offer, or did I come out of habit or routine? Did I look at that vile sinner in disgust and condemnation, or did my heart break at the fact that they were lost?
A RESOLUTION is defined as a decision to do or not do something.
RESOLVE is defined as firm determination to do something.
As we enter the year 2023, let us be prayerfully mindful of the day in which we live, and the soon coming of Jesus Christ. We have no time to waste on resolutions that may fail, but we need a burning resolve down in our hearts to grab onto the heart of Jesus, and go after those that He shed His blood for.
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13-14
Jeremiah Hayes Vice President Azusa Streetriders International