Monday, January 01, 2007

Resolutions...

Well here we are at the new year and it seems that goals and ambitions are renewed afresh annually at this time. I have been pondering the role of goals (resolutions, if you will) in my mind and have decided to go to scripture to get a little better idea of where the believer's responsibility lies as regards the achievement of spiritual goals.

The Scripture that started me thinking all of this is found in 2 Corinthians 13:11
Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
I suppose I often think that our real responsibility to God is to get out of the way so he can work through us (or sometimes in spite of us). Paul says in the passage above that we are to "Aim for perfection". At first glance this passage seems almost contradictory to what we are taught elsewhere, ie. John 15:5b - "Apart from me (Christ) you can do nothing". But as I have mulled this over in my mind the past several days I have come to realize that Paul did not say "Attain perfection" but "Aim for perfection". We need only to aim for the perfection to which we are called, for we cannot attain it of ourselves. We are responsible to plan for it, lay the groundwork for it and move in the right direction. God will have to get us there, and He will - "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9.

Here are some of the goals that scripture outlines for us. If you are making some resolutions this year, consider these among them:
I really needed the Lord to speak this to me right now. After several months of extreme spiritual highs I have been going through a valley and feeling somewhat mired in life. Sometimes that is when you need to just make up your mind which direction you are going to go and pull yourself up by the spiritual bootstraps - and all of these scriptures have inspired me to make some spiritual resolutions this year.