ONE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION THAT WILL WORK!

MATTHEW 15:15-20: “Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.” So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” NKJV

OBSERVATION: Have you made a New Year’s Resolution? The entire marketing community is hoping that you have. As the holidays begin we are tantalized with all sorts of sweets, drinks, and every food imaginable. It is as if the marketing gurus are crying out – “Eat, drink, and be merry – for calories do not count during November and December!”

Then it happens!

On January 2 the marketing gurus change their strategy. Now, every ad is filled with diet companies, Keto miracles, and exercise equipment. We are plumped up during November and December only to be shamed into buying some weight loss miracle in January. 

What is wrong with this picture?

One only needs to go to a community garage sale later in the year to see the plethora of exercise equipment that is for sale to realize that this cycle continues to plague us every year. Why do we struggle to keep even the simplest of New Year’s Resolutions? Why do we get on this merry-go-round over and over again?

The answer is a matter of focus!

This is what Jesus was trying to convey to His disciples with this story. The religious leaders and community of Jesus’ day were focused on changing the outside of the cup but ignored the inside. They were preoccupied with external rules and ignored the weightier matters of the heart. This is why Jesus called them whitewashed tombs that were filled with decaying bones.

This is exactly why New Year’s Resolutions don’t work. They are focused on changing something on the outside of our lives while we ignore our need to change our hearts. This is where we need to get a bit technical for the moment to understand this better.

Jesus said that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven we must be born again. This was not a physical rebirth but a spiritual one. It was to be reborn of water (sincere repentance) and the spirit (the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in our spirits). The result is what the prophet Ezekiel prophesied.

• “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Eze 36:25-27 NKJV)

Here is what we miss in our understanding. When we are born again we receive a NEW HEART! We are born again by the Spirit in our spirits! Our spirits cannot be born again any more than they are the minute we trust in Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Yet, there is something that does not change.

It is our soul (mind, will, and emotions) and our bodies (which continue to decay because of sin).

So what does this have to do with New Year’s Resolutions? Everything! The changes that we want to see in our lives will never come from trying to whip the old boys of our souls and bodies into shape. They will only come as we begin to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and allow our reborn spirit to lead the way.

The Bible calls us as born-again believers to do two important things. First, it calls us to renew our minds by the Word of God. This means that our entire thought process needs to be cleansed and retrained by God’s Word. Second, it calls us to discipline our bodies as we walk after the Spirit. Yet, it never calls us to do these things from our own strength or resolution. 

It is a call to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our lives from the inside out.

• “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal 3:1-3 NKJV)

And, Paul reminds us that the power for this change comes through the cross!

• “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” (Gal 2:20-21 NKJV)

So what am I to do with my New Year’s Resolutions? I need to focus on matters of the heart. When I walk after the Spirit, when I allow my mind to be renewed by the Word of God, something wonderful happens.

My body (the external things in my life) follows!

Let’s face it. There is not a product on the market, a diet program, or an exercise machine or routine that can address the inner struggles that Jesus outlined as He explained this parable to His disciples.

• “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

There is only ONE who can overcome these things – Jesus Christ our Lord! When we die to ourselves (our attempts to change our lives in our own wisdom and strength), and live for Christ (by walking after the Holy Spirit and renewing our minds with the Word of God), only then will we be set free from our sin, our self, and the power of the enemy.

As mankind rushes to change their lives from the outside, the believer runs to the cross of Jesus Christ knowing that there can be no change without His forgiveness and the renewing work of the Holy Spirit within!

• “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” (Gal 6:14-15 NKJV)

Lord, this year I want to have only one resolution – to be crucified with Jesus Christ and to live my life in the power of the Holy Spirit from within! As I walk after the Holy Spirit, as I renew my mind daily with the Word of God, change everything that You desire to change from the inside – out!

In Jesus Name!