Happy New Year!

Vowing to lose weight in the new year? Or stop bad habits? This time of year leads us to make New Year’s resolutions. Out with the old and in with the new.  Yet how many times have these pledges drifted and waned before coming to standstill by March?  Our spirits are willing though our flesh is mightily weak.

Kudos to those who pledge to becoming a better person in the New Year…committed to turning over a new leaf. Start anew. Change. This is an admirable goal to achieve, yet by true grit and by sheer strength, we will often miss the mark.

Sinners, as we all are, need not turn over a new leaf so much as a new heart. We can’t use the stuff of flesh to make better flesh…we need the Holy Spirit to accomplish the work. People need the Lord.

It’s not about becoming better versions of ourselves…better Joe’s, John’s or Alice’s. Our goals should be higher than that. Our purpose on earth should be to grow into becoming more like the savior of the world.

May this New Year be our year to yield not just some but all of our hopes, dreams, and aspirations to God, so that he may continue to mold us into the image of his son today and throughout the New Year.  In so doing, don’t be surprised in finding the desires of your heart fulfilled along the way as the Lord wills.