Here’s a New Year’s Resolution that Costs Nothing but Gains Everything

January means a new calendar year, with new resolutions, new memberships in gyms, and new weight loss programs. Not that it’s wrong to start a new calendar year with ambitious goals, but we must acknowledge that God isn’t constrained by calendars.  God’s gifts and generosity don’t newly begin every January.  Our Heavenly Father loves us and is merciful to us sinners every new morning.

The year 2025 (just as it was in 2024 and will again be in 2026) will give us 365 chances and 365 fresh starts.  Every morning, the Lord promises us: 

• Strength  (read: Isaiah 40:29-31)
• Love  (read: Romans 8:37-39)
• Security  (read: Proverbs 1:33)
• Peace  (read: John 14:27)
• Rest  (read: Matthew 11:28-29)

So, before any of us spend $$$ for a new year’s gym membership to help us improve our physical selves, we would be smart to prioritize spending time in prayer each morning so to improve our spiritual selves – and it’s free to do this!  How about if we make our first resolution of 2025 be that for the next 365 days one of the first things we resolve to do after we awake is to set aside a quiet time to thank and praise the Almighty for creating us, for bestowing us with many gifts, for mercifully forgiving our sins, for sending His son as a sacrifice, and for promising the reward of eternal life to those who do His will. 

Besides looking up and reading the five bulleted Scripture passages above which describe all that the Lord promises us every morning of every year, ponder this passage from The Book of Lamentations:

“The Lord’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent;

They are RENEWED EACH MORNING — great is your faithfulness!

The Lord is my portion, I tell myself, therefore I will hope in him.

The Lord is good to those who trust in him, to the one that seeks him.”

Happy New Year!