Home Message From the Elders Making New Years resolutions, how about making measurable goals instead
Making New Years resolutions, how about making measurable goals instead PDF Print E-mail

I don't make New Years resolutions, and I would dare say that very few people actually do.  Even for those few who do, very few actually wind up keeping them.  I think that is because the word resolution has lost the meaning of its root word resolve and has become more about setting a goal.  A goal is a measurable objective that we can meet.  Being resolved is a state of mind.  I am afraid that the reason so few of us make or keep New Years resolutions is that we dont have the resolve to meet our goals.  Perhaps it is just as well that we dont use the word resolve casually.  The Bible rarely uses it so I think we should sit up and take notice when it does, because what is being resolved is basic to our faith.

The apostle Paul resolved to do something in Corinthians, but it wasnt a measurable goal.  Lets look at the first 3 verses of I Corinthians chapter 2:
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

 

Paul resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Not that Paul was trying to erase information from his brain like it was a hard drive, but that he was only going to have one priority, and that was preaching Jesus.  If we read the previous chapter, we find that Paul made this resolution in order to avoid feeding the divisions that were forming in the Corinthian church.  In our present times, when our society seems to be getting increasingly polarized about everything - from how to deliver medical services to how to choose the best college football team and even what operating system to use on our computers, I think we should take a lesson from Pauls resolution.  We should resolve to realize that God has the final say in the end.  If we dont seek His will it wont matter how our health care gets paid for, because in the end this world will be destroyed anyway.