What New Years Resolutions and Sin have in common.
Another new year, another list of broken resolutions. We mean well, we think to ourselves this time I’m really going to do it! But 25% quit after their first week. Another 40% are done by the end of January. By the middle of February 80% have failed. In fact, only around 4% are successful by the end of the year. Why is this we ask. Reasons listed are unrealistic goals, bad planning, and waning motivation.
I think I have a better explanation of why we fail our resolutions. They involve giving up things we really like. I resolve to lose weight, but I really like to eat. I resolve to get in shape, but I really like sitting on the couch watching tv more than I like exercising.
This isn’t unlike sin. How many times do we say that we’re going to give up some sin in our life that we know needs to go. How many times do we try, and maybe do well, only to return to that sin. We may say that we really hate that sin, but if we really hate something then we have no desire to do that thing. The truth is we may hate the way that sin makes us feel. We may hate what the sin is doing to us. We may hate that the sin is drawing us away from Jesus, but deep inside we like the sin, we gravitate towards it.
Before we beat ourselves up, before we feel like we’re totally defeated, let’s look at what Paul said about this human state in Romans 7. In verse 19 Paul writes “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” In verse 24 and 25a “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” In our fallen state, apart from Christ, we are destined to follow our sinful desires.
Even when we have Jesus as Lord, we still have that sinful state in us trying to control us. The difference is that now we don’t have to sin because we have an advocate living in us in the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us. So where do we go astray. I think in my case, and this may be the case for many of us, we have an “I” problem. I am going to stop this sin. I am going to do everything I can to defeat these wrong thoughts. I am going to …… you name it. See the problem? We have an “I” problem. The only way to defeat this “I” problem is to remove myself as the central focus of my life and put that focus on God.
So, in this new year I’m not going to resolve to sin less. I’m not even going to think to myself I need to sin less. Wait…what?!? Yep, instead of resolving to sin less, I’m going to seek to love God more! The more I love God the less I am going to desire those sinful things in my life. The only way I can accomplish that is for me to ask God to put that desire in my heart, to love him more. “I” cannot do that on my own. “I” will fail.
So, this is my prayer for myself this year, every day, taken from Psalm 63.
Father, I pray that you supernaturally put in me a desire for you and a love for you beyond anything that I alone can possess. Instill in me this desire to love you so that I can say with all my heart, Psalm 63:1 “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.”
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