Monday Morning Music Ministry

Start Your Week with a Spiritual Song in Your Heart

Time To Check the Resolutions

1-6-20

We are deep into the new decade… Well, hardly. Anyway, far enough into the first month of the new year… actually, not so. Um, would you believe almost through the first week?

My question, disregarding the calendar page, becomes easier: how is it going with those New Year’s resolutions?

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of us resolved to give up climbing the Alps in sandals? To cut out all luxuries like miniature pineapples and baby coconuts? To economize by deciding not to purchase luxury boxes for the World Series games?

Easier: How many of us gave up chocolate… or maybe things like broccoli or squid or things we never liked in the first place?

Then we might ask how many of us – being more serious about the “root” of this tradition – how many of us resolved to do positive things, instead of avoiding negative things?

How many of us resolved to pray more, every day? Or to do something “extra” like charity work or sharing foods, intentionally serving our neighbors? To show love… to be love, in the coming year?

All of which makes us think (or should!) about resolutions – things we resolve to do – that we tend to think they should be things we subtract from our lives, when we should rather resolve to add to our lives.

For God’s sake.

And if we become intentional about such things, we can come closer to realizing that God has made resolutions, too. About us. After all, the best promise He made was to send His Son to take the punishment for our sins away… while we were yet sinners.

An amazing promise, that. And from the Giver of Resolutions whose Nature is such that He cannot break His promises.

The questions I asked above have similar answers. Whether we make promises impossible to keep; or about silly ones whose fidelity mean nothing; or even well-intentioned positive resolutions; most of us, being human, have already surrendered. Well, there is always next year.

For our God, however, for Whom a spark is like a thousand years, “next year” is like… eternity. And God’s promises are as from Alpha to Omega. His resolutions cannot be broken. He does not want to: it is not what God does.

On the heavenly scales, our uncountable broken resolutions and promises to God are outweighed by His one resolution: He will remember us.

Happy New Year!

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Click: He Will Remember Me

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... Rick Marschall is the author of 74 books and hundreds of magazine articles in many fields, from popular culture (Bostonia magazine called him "perhaps America's foremost authority on popular culture") to history and criticism; country music; television history; biography; and children's books. He is a former political cartoonist, editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney comics. For 20 years he has been active in the Christian field, writing devotionals and magazine articles; he was co-author of "The Secret Revealed" with Dr Jim Garlow. His biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for the “Christian Encounters” series was published by Thomas Nelson. He currently is writing a biography of the Rev Jimmy Swaggart and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Read More