New Year Thoughts
From childhood, I looked forward to the New Year because it gave me the opportunity to make a fresh start. I succumbed to all the typical resolutions, vowing each year to succeed, unlike the year before. Never happened. I bet you can relate. All those years of making resolutions only served to stress me with guilt and failure. Maybe it takes years of stress for one to see the futility of thinking a single date will make a difference.
There’s nothing magical about January 1. Our continued failure at keeping resolutions makes that evident. The problems lies not in date setting, but in mind setting. You see our minds are flawed because of our sin nature, whose motivation is to get us to succumb to our flesh. This is the reason we fail. We keep going back to doing what our flesh wants. Until we fix our flawed thinking, our sin nature will hold us captive. And since the sin nature is with us until we die, what hope do we have?
Our only hope lies in the power of the Holy Spirit. Specifically, allowing the Holy Spirit to renew our mind so that we can think with the mind of Christ. (Romans 12:2) Thinking with the mind of Christ overrules our flawed thinking. And it is only when we walk in the Spirit (vs. the flesh) can we begin to think with the mind of Christ.
When we think with the mind of Christ, we make choices the way Jesus would and the issues we struggle with begin to unravel, smooth out, and disappear. All we have to do is let the Holy Spirit transform our thinking. He does this by taking Bible doctrine (principles) found in Scripture and not only teaches us how to apply them in our life but gives us the strength to do so. It’s called the mentorship of the Holy Spirit.
Learning Bible doctrine is key because it is the only thing the Holy Spirit uses to transform us. This requires the believer in Christ to not just read their Bible, but to study, study, study under a true teacher of the Word of God. With out the TRUE truth in our soul, the Holy Spirit has nothing to work with to fix our flawed thinking.
Once I learned this principle and submitted to the mentorship of the Holy Spirit, the things I wanted to change, changed without struggle, stress, or effort because I was no longer thinking from the flesh but rather thinking with the mind of Christ.
Can we fall back into our flawed thinking? Yes! Walking in the Spirit and thinking with the mind of Christ is a moment-by-moment choice. One can easily fall back into flawed thinking when they give into the sin nature and grieve the Holy Spirit. (guilty!) This is the struggle Paul talks about in Romans 7:19-25
Something else I’d like you to consider. New Year’s resolutions for the most part are made up of rules and regulations people think will improve their life, when in fact, these regulations we impose on ourselves do nothing to fix our flawed thinking. Take a look at Colossians 2:23...
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence (flesh)
Only the Holy Spirit gives us the power to restrain the flesh.
Principle: A believer who walks in the Spirit has no need of New Year’s resolutions for if we walk in the Spirit, our lives manifest the results of a changed life.
Let’s see what other Scripture says…
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. Isaiah 58:11
To learn more about walking in the Spirit, take my free course - The True Woman of God, and subscribe to my website to receive more words of wisdom.
