It's A New Year: Resolutions For Christians?

I called my mother today to wish her a Happy New Year, and jokingly, I asked what her resolutions were for the coming year. Her response was, "I don't see New Year's resolutions anywhere in the Bible". I gathered that she must have heard a message recently criticizing resolutions. This really stirred up a lot of thought inside me. Should Christians make resolutions for the new year? Is it wrong to make resolutions for the coming year? Especially lately, I have seasoned my internal questions with, "What does the Bible say?", and have not been disappointed with the answers I have found. I hold the Bible as my guide for life and the key to my need for answers on everything from forgiveness to marital relationships.



Concerning resolutions for the new year, I cannot find that the Bible mentions anything specifically. The Bible does, however, contain records of major events that took place yearly. The one event that I want to highlight is contained in the Old Testament of the Bible, Leviticus Chapter 16. The Bible talks about an Atonement which God commanded to take place once every year (on the 10th day of October, I believe). This was an event in which an appointed High Priest would go into the innermost portion of God's Tabernacle, called the Holy Place, to make offerings for the sins of Israel to God. No man was allowed to enter this area, save for once a year. Leviticus gives a very detailed account of what was required to make sacrifices for the sins of the people, right down to what the priest could wear and what animals were to be used. At one step in the Atonement, the priest would lay his hands on the head of a live goat and confess over him the iniquities, transgressions, and sins of all the people of Israel. What a daunting task! Could you imagine trying to recount the sins of a whole nation? And now the better plan...



This event detailed in Leviticus was a form of what Jesus Christ would later do once and for all. Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father to make the final Atonement for the sins of not only Israel, but the world. Even before the foundations of the world, this plan was in place. Instead of making sacrifices for the covering up of sins until the following year, Jesus Christ, perfect in all ways, would become the final sacrifice for sin, and not merely for a covering up of sin, but for the erasing of sin. The book of Hebrews outlines a new covenant (or promise) by God through Jesus Christ in which an earthly priest is no longer necessary because Jesus Christ is forever our High Priest in Heaven. No longer would people have to go to other people to get to God, there is now only one way: Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:11-15 "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant." WOW!! Praise God for the final redemptive work of Jesus Christ!!



Okay, at this point I'm almost sure you are wondering: How in the world does this relate to New Year's resolutions? I'm getting there. You see, in the early times, people could look forward to a new start, or a new year (if you will), after the Atonement. If I would have been alive during those times, I would have felt pretty good after that Atonement, like I had been given a blank slate with which to write better things on for the coming year, and forget about the mistakes and sins of last year. But with a new and better way through Jesus Christ, we are cleansed and spotless through His blood, and as the year 2009 begins, I can know that my sins have been forgiven and I have been set free from death and have eternal life! Most importantly, I am no longer separated from God, and am restored to a right standing before him.



What is the most important resolution to be made regardless of what time of year? Think about it. Until next time, God Bless...