Mark Twain once said concerning New Year’s resolutions, “Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.”
I must confess that I have not always been successful in keeping New Years resolutions. Like most people, we make them with good intentions but find ourselves woefully lacking in determination and success. I have had a measure of success in the past and I am having a good measure of it this year. But we are only about thirty days into the New Year.
Sadly many people who come to Christ treat the decision like a New Years resolution. They are full committed and faithful for a while, but then find themselves slowly waning in strength and commitment. I believe the problem is that for many people we make unrealistic resolutions and place such lofty daunting goals in front of us that we soon become discouraged at our lack of progress and slowly give in to temptation and return to the old lives we sought so desperately to leave behind.
For example, the person who says they want to lose one hundred pounds may become week and discouraged when they see minimal losses. The person who uses fowl language with every other breath and resolves to never again say a bad word may give up with the first slip of the tongue. The commitment to Christ is in some ways very similar. We come to Christ to be cleansed form our past sins and determined to live a perfect life and when we stumble and fall and defile our garments once again many fall away. Jesus in the Parable of the Sower in Mark chapter four speaks of these who were represented by the seed that was sown among the thorns. “Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (18-19).
Someone once said that the Christian race is a marathon, not a sprint. The Bible encourages us to endure! Jesus said, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24.13; Mark 13.13). Of the seed that fell upon the stony ground Jesus said, “…they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble” (Mark 3.17). Four different times in Paul’s farewell address to Timothy he tells him to “endure” (2 Tim. 2.3; 2 Tim. 2.10; 2 Tim. 4.3; 2 Tim. 4.5).
As the beautiful hymn say we must “work till the close of the day” in order to “see the great King in his Beauty” when we’ve “gone the last mile of the way.” No, we cannot just work a few hours then retire. We cannot walk just the first few hundred yards. Have you started that journey to heaven? Have you repented of your sins and been baptized into Christ? If not, stop for a moment and consider the destination of the road you are on. Then come to Jesus and be heaven bound. Have you obeyed they gospel of Jesus? How are you doing keeping your resolution to be a faithful child of God? God loves you and Jesus died for you. Be faithful