So How's That 2012 New Year's Resolution Going?
We are about a month into 2012. Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Are you trying to shed a few pounds, spend more time with family and friends, pay off some debt, or organize your garage? These are some of the top ten New Year’s resolutions each year. Do any of these resolutions sound familiar? Maybe you had them last year and gave up on them sometime before February.
New Year’s resolutions can be really hard to keep. You are not accountable to anyone but yourself, so it is easy to understand why people tend to lose their resolve. But what if you were accountable to someone else? Would that help? Who would you ask to help you keep your New Year’s resolution?
We are accountable to God, not for keeping our top ten New Year’s resolutions, but for keeping God’s top Ten Commandments. He promises punishment and wrath for all those who lose their resolve and fail to keep His Commandments. This is extremely bad news, because all of us have fallen short of God’s expectations.
But for those who are able to hear it, God has another word for us, a word of hope. He has punished His son in our place for the times we have failed to keep His Commandments. His wrath toward us is gone! He declares that we are forgiven because Jesus took the penalty for our sin.
How does a person receive the benefits that Jesus has won for us by dying on the cross? It is not by our resolve to keep His commandments. But it is by faith, or by trusting that Jesus has kept God’s commandments for us. And also by trusting the Jesus has willingly suffered the punishment of our sin and failures. May God grant you faith to believe this great news in 2012.
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