Copyright 2015 by Bob Rogers

Are you making a New Year’s resolution? Popular ones include: weight loss, quitting smoking, exercise, getting back to church, and reading the Bible.

One fellow kept a record of his resolution to be more faithful to church. Here’s how his resolutions went year after year:

2012: I will go to church every Sunday.

2013: I will go to church as often as possible.

2014: I will go to church on Easter.

2015: I will DVR the next Billy Graham TV special and watch it eventually.

Can you relate? Why do our New Year’s resolutions often fail? I believe the reason is because they are the best that we can do, and our best is not good enough. The Bible says in Romans 7:18-19, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

Resolutions are the best that we can do. To succeed, we must do what only God can do.

Do you want to be a better person this New Year? Here’s the Bible’s secret to being different: Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “…let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith…” The answer is “keeping our eyes on Jesus”!

John Crossen is a cancer patient, who fixes his eyes on Jesus for 30 minutes, five days a week. He has a hologram card in his wallet with an image of Jesus, and while he takes radiation treatments, he lies still and looks at the picture. He also puts the picture on his night stand. “It’s the first thing to greet me in the morning and the last thing to see before I close my eyes at night,” Crossen said. “A reminder that His love lives on, no matter what.” (Janie Magruder, “The many faces of Jesus,” The Arizona Republic, Dec. 24, 2005.)

While Mr. Crossen found comfort in an image that reminded him of Jesus, the truth is that we don’t have an original image of Jesus. Or do we? Don’t the Gospels in the New Testament give us a true picture of Him? Don’t we see Him in the lives of those who serve Him? May I suggest that if you really want to be a better person, then forget about making a New Year’s resolution, and have a New Year’s revolution, instead. Decide to fall in love with Jesus, and all that He stands for, and your life will be changed not just in 2016, but forever.

If you do, the Bible makes this promise: “I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6).