Resolutions

So, how are those resolutions going? Are you being good about what you eat? Are you continuing to work out? Are you finding it hard to make the changes you promised to make? Don’t those cupcakes look really good.

The other day someone asked me to help him with his resolutions. He wanted to know if I thought the resolutions he made were the right ones. I thought about what he asked and I realized that I had further questions. The questions were as follows:

· What does the Bible say is the goal of every human being?

· What is your personal goal?

· What is it that drives you towards that goal?

· How do the answers to the first three questions help me determine what my resolutions should be?

I ask these questions because I believe we often set New Year’s resolutions for the wrong reasons. Sometimes they don’t align with what our goal is in life. Other times they lead us to go after the wrong things in life. Even worse than that, sometimes our resolutions go against what God has designed us to do. It stands to reason that if we can line up our goal with what God’s goal is then everything should work easier.

What is God’s goal for our life anyways? For what purpose did He create us? On this note, almost everyone who takes the Bible as their guide agree. The highest goal of our life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We were made to worship Him. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that we are to worship Him in everything we do and at all times. The Psalmist Asaph should speak for all of us when he says that there is nothing on earth he desires more than God (Psalm 73:25).

So, we are to glorify God and enjoy Him. Actually, I think we can go a step further. John Piper, following the lead of Jonathan Edwards, has written that the way we glorify God most is by enjoying Him. In other words, we worship God the most when we find all of our joy and contentment in God. We honor Him immensely when we say we want to be with Him above everything else. We magnify His great name when we reveal to others that He is whom we are living for.

Does your New Year’s resolution say that? Is your life geared around the biblical goal of glorifying God by enjoying Him forever? Is it your personal mission to reflect this truth in all of your life?

My sense is, if we align our goals and our resolutions around God’s design for us, then we will accomplish them. We won’t be working against the current of how God designed us. And, more importantly, if we do set goals that go along with His plan, then the Holy Spirit will empower us to do what God has created us to do.