What sort of New Year's Resolutions should Christians make? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 60

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Happy New Year!

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So for this episode, we thought we'd discuss something that we do receive quite a few questions about, especially this time of year, and that's

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New Year's resolutions. There's so many resolutions that Christians can make. There's some pretty typical ones that people make.

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There's a little history behind it, so we'll be discussing a little bit of all of that. But I think what we want our focus to be today is if you're going to make a resolution, most of the things that we make them on are things we should be doing anyways.

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So common resolutions for Christians would be to read the Bible more, to pray more, to go to church more faithfully.

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And these are great resolutions to make, but don't try to base your strength or your motivation for doing this based on the fact that you made a

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New Year's resolution. You should be doing those because they're important, because they're building up in our faith and the faith of others, because they're commanded in Scripture.

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So let's have the right attitude about New Year's resolutions, and that's kind of the focus of our conversation here today.

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So Jeff, why don't you give us a little background on what you've discovered about the origin of New Year's resolutions, and even what our attitude about them should be?

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Well, from an origin standpoint, there's nothing really that original per se about people just resolving that they're going to do something.

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I mean, at its core, it's just a decision. It's just a person who says, I decided that this is something that I'm going to do.

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And there are some connections with people making specific proclamations about things that they would like to do in an upcoming time period that's connected to New Year.

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And there's things about Babylon and stuff like that. And honestly, none of that is especially relevant to how

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Christians do it. It's one of those subjects where if you were going to make a decision on something, there's no reason to say, well,

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I can't make a decision to change something between December 31st and January 1st, because some pagan 5 ,000 years ago decided to do the same thing.

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Well, we can make decisions when we want to make them. You do see evidence in the Bible of people making things that are on the level of what we would think of as resolving to do things.

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And I think it's good for us to look at what that really means when we see those things. Good examples, Joseph resolved what he was going to do when he found out what was going on with Mary.

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Paul resolved where he was going to travel during his missionary journeys. Paul later on said that he resolved that he was going to take a certain tactic when he was interacting with groups like the

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Corinthians. What you see in all those is that somebody is saying, I am going to look at a situation and I'm going to carefully and prayerfully make a decision to take some specific action.

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And I think that's a good thing. I think it's good for us as believers to do things like test ourselves, examine ourselves. So like you were saying,

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Shay, a lot of the things that people resolve to do are probably things that we should be doing anyway.

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You know, anybody who says something like, I want to do this, I want to do that, almost everything that we come up with as a

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New Year's resolution is probably something that we know we should be doing. And we're just picking New Year's Day as a moment to say, okay, this is when

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I'm going to start doing things as I should. From a biblical standpoint, I think we see a lot of that careful, thoughtful thing.

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So for me, one of the things that I've, I've begun to believe is that probably our resolutions, whether it's

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New Year's or anything else like that probably needs to be something more specific than just the what. In other words, instead of just saying something like,

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I resolve to read my Bible. Well, meaning what I resolve to read it at a certain schedule,

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I resolve to read it on a certain timeframe on a certain day. Exactly what does that mean?

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And when we see those resolutions in the Bible, that's what we see is that people are resolving to do something specific. Joseph didn't say,

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I just resolve to make this better. Paul didn't say, well, I resolve to do something good. Joseph said,

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I'm going to do this thing. Paul said, this is what I'm going to do. When he talked about the Corinthian church, he said,

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I resolved this. So I think one of the things that we can probably do that's helpful is to resolve specific things.

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And whether that's something secular or sacred resolutions, like I'm going to read my Bible with more context, or I'm going to read my

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Bible in more depth. I'm going to pray more. I'm going to pray more specifically about people in my life or my church life or my family.

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I think when we do something specific, it not only helps us stay on task with getting it done, but it reminds us that we're actually supposed to be doing something with these.

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And I think that's an important distinction to make between just saying, I'm just going to resolve to do some thing versus a person saying,

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I'm going to resolve something specific, and I'm going to do that with a specific goal in mind. I think,

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Jeff, that's a great point. For me, probably, so I came to Faith in Christ my late teens, which is, wow, approaching 30 years ago now.

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But youth pastors discipling me emphasize the need to do daily

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Bible reading, and especially like a one -year type of Bible. You need to read through the Bible every year.

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And so for most of the past 30 years, every year,

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I have done that. The last couple of years, I've just found that many times

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I would read the daily passage, whether it's in the chronological Bible or the

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Old Testament, New Testament Psalms and Proverbs set up, and you could ask me five minutes later what

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I read, and I have no clue. So especially this year, I've been focusing more on diving a little more in depth into either the

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Old Testament passage or the New Testament passage, rather than just making a checklist. Oh, okay, I did my daily

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Bible reading, trying to make it more meaningful. So I like how you focused on us being specific on what we're resolving to do, because that was huge for me, rather than sort of spiritual.

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Oh, I read through the Bible again this year. Well, what did you get out of it? Oh, nothing. I mean, no. I mean, our focus should be on,

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I spent quality time with the Lord studying His Word, and here are some of the things I learned and applied to my life.

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And that's been very helpful for me to focus on this year, less of a checklist and more of a, how can this impact me personally for the better, for a closer walk with Christ.

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Yeah. Well, that need for specificity, I think, is very important, is we want to avoid generalities when we make

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New Year's resolutions. So yes, it's like, I'm going to lose weight.

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Well, what's step one? How are we going to do that? And I'm going to read the Bible more.

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That's a great goal, but what's going to be the specific steps that I'm taking?

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Am I going to set aside a certain time of day to read my Bible? And maybe I need to get rid of the generality and just get more specific with saying,

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I'm going to read my Bible while I journal or while I take notes in this notebook that I've prepared, and it's all set up, ready to go.

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So we want to avoid the generalities. We also want to avoid procrastination. I have a four -year -old granddaughter, and whenever we say, well, let's pick up the toys or let's do another chore, she has this thing right now where she says, let's do that tomorrow, okay?

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I mean, she learned very early just to put things off, and we don't want to be raising a little procrastinator, and we don't want to allow procrastination in ourselves either.

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So we say, I'm going to read the Bible as I take notes, and I'm going to start today at such and such a time.

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And we need to get real specific. We need to go ahead and follow through, that follow -through is so important, and not procrastinate.

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I was interested to read all the popular

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New Year's resolutions that people make every year, and this year, top of the list, as probably every year it's like this, is exercise more.

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So there it is. We want to be more in shape. We realize the fact that we're more out of shape than we should be, or maybe

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I should just be saying this personally. For me, I know I'm more out of shape than I should be, so I need to exercise more.

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That's going to be one of my resolutions too, I think. But also, number two on the list, this is according to a Global Consumer Survey, number two was eat healthier.

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So that plus number one would be losing weight kind of thing. Number three is spending more time with family.

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And I thought that was very interesting, that one of the resolutions is not to spend more time at the job, or to spend more time with my nose to the grindstone.

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It is spend more time with the family. You know, that's a priority, and that's a good sign.

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Number four is lose weight. I guess that would go along with the first two. Number five was live more economically.

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So that would involve, I guess, saving more, spending less, having a better grasp of the budget in the household.

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Number six, spending less time on social media. And I thought that was a good one as well.

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What a time waster social media can be. It has its benefits to be sure, but spending less time on social media, probably a pretty good resolution for a lot of us.

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Number seven was improve my job performance. So do better at my job.

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Reduce my stress on the job was number eight. Number nine, very common, quit smoking. You know, this is going to be the year

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I'm going to quit smoking this year. Number 10, cut down on alcohol consumption.

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So the vices make it in there. You're going to say, I'm going to do less of that, and I'm going to work on bettering myself in some ways.

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For the Christian, I mean, all of those could be, you know, could be things that Christians are saying too.

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But I think the Christian can also start saying things like, I'm going to read my Bible more consistently, you know, and as we've mentioned with journaling, with note -taking, stuff like that, devote more attention to prayer.

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Maybe pray with a list, you know, come up with a prepared list of people and ministries that I really want to lift up to the

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Lord in prayer and pray through that list. Share the gospel more, might be one that believers have, and show the love of Christ more.

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Show the love of Christ in more practical ways. You know, look for opportunities to serve in various ways as I go through every day.

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That may be a good resolution for believers to have as well. All of these things are good to put on our list.

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I think that it's also important that we're, as you were talking about these things that it's good for Christians to focus on, when we talk about the specificity,

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I think it's also good for us to bring up the idea that in the Bible, God is constantly calling on us to take specific actions and to do specific things, but he very rarely ever tells us to specifically accomplish an exact task.

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He'll say that he's going to do certain things or that he wants us to take a certain step, but I think that one of the things that gets us in trouble sometimes, for example, you mentioned witnessing more.

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You know, I'm going to be more vocal and bold about sharing my faith versus a person say,

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I'm going to lead seven people to Christ this year, right?

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In other words, there's, or saying something like, I need to eat better and exercise more. There's a little bit of a different character to saying something like,

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I'm going to lose 20 pounds. And I think the big difference for us as believers is we have to remember that God calls on us to do and to make an effort, but then to trust him with the results.

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And I think a lot of times what we do is we get hung up in our own ability and our own power, and we want to set a specific explicit goal.

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And then we get hung up on the goal instead of the process, which is letting God work through us, following his directions, doing what he asks us to do in a specific moment at a specific time, and then letting things happen.

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Sometimes I think that's, that saves us from becoming frustrated when things don't happen as quickly as we want them to, or as well as we want them to.

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And the other thing I think it does is it can actually help us not come up short. For example, if our, if our goal is to say,

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I want to lead X number of people to Christ this year, you know, beyond the fact that it's, it's not sales, that's not exactly how this works.

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You don't want to get yourself into a position where you reach a certain point and you go, oh, good. Well, I met my goal and now I'm going to start to taper down and ease off.

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So I think as, as we're looking at these good resolutions and the way we do it, we can remember that God calls on us to make the effort.

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So we need to focus on, I'm going to do the specific things that God wants me to do as far as what that's going to mean, how it's going to work out, how that's going to actually manifest itself in my life and so on and so forth.

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I think we need to be ready to leave those things to God in part, because it's just a reminder for us that we are not ultimately responsible for how

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God works in other people and in the world. And we need to be open to His, His efforts and His power, rather than just trying to rely on our own.

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Yes. Our church doesn't really make New Year's resolutions, but we do set goals every year.

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And, and it's always a, a balance there that we're trying to, trying to find between the, the too general and the too specific.

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Because as you were pointing out, Jeff, if we, if we set our goals to be too specific, then, you know, that has some pitfalls with it as well.

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So when we're setting goals for our church as a congregation, we, we really, we really pray about it.

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And we, we want to leave the door open for the Holy Spirit to work. You know, He may, He may have different goals, different numerical goals than what we're setting.

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And, you know, we, we want to be sensitive to His leading always.

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I definitely agree with both of you on the specificity, however you say that word.

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But for me, one of my goals for next year is to be more actively involved in a discipling relationship with someone.

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Obviously we do a lot of discipleship at GodQuestions. I mean, that's most of the questions we answered are helping

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Christians to grow by helping to understand God's Word better, or a spiritual issue in their life, or overcome certain sin, those sorts of things.

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So it's all discipleship. But to actually do that in the real world, because my tendency as someone who's somewhat introverted is, oh,

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I've kind of, I've done my discipleship through GodQuestions. I don't need to actually do it with any people in the real world.

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I don't think that's the right attitude. And so to be more actively involved in that and in other people's lives in the real world, and I don't want to set like a number, like, oh,

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I need to meet with this many people throughout the year or this many times, because I want it to be more organic than that, just to be more cognizant of opportunities that present themselves, be more aware of people who are struggling with something that maybe

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I could give a word of wisdom type of thing. But yeah, I don't want it to become just a checklist, just like the

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Bible reading. I don't want it to be, oh, okay, I've met my threshold for the year, therefore

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I can take the last six months off, that sort of thing. No, I want it to become a lifestyle, a habit sort of thing.

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And Kevin, with your list earlier, I mean, for me, the one resolution that I can't seem to get motivated for other than at New Year's is the losing weight.

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And thankfully I've done, beginning of last year, I had a weight loss goal.

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I met that goal and was able to keep the vast majority of it off. So I've got maybe another five pounds

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I want to lose, but I find myself between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so focused on food,

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I'm not even going to bother. And so I don't even try until January one.

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And I've seen that same thing with some people spiritually treating like a sin they want to overcome or something they want to become more faithful at in their relationship with Christ.

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They're like, oh, well, I'll wait till January one. And let me just tell you, no, that's not how this works, especially with overcoming a sin.

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It's like, oh, I'll repent from that in January. It's like, no, you need to repent from that right now. So putting off a physical resolution, like trying to lose weight, eat better, get more exercise is one thing.

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Putting off a spiritual goal is another thing entirely. And that, no, if God's Word tells us these are things we need to do, we need to be doing them right now.

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That's not the sort of thing you put off till January one by any stretch. How about this for a

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New Year's resolution for all of us? It comes from Romans chapter 12, and I'll just read verses six through eight here.

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We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith.

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If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement.

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If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently.

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If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. How about this for a

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New Year's resolution, that we stir up the gift of God that we have by grace through His Holy Spirit?

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Each of us as believers in Christ have been given spiritual gifts, and we need to be using those gifts.

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That's basically what this passage is saying. Hey, if you've got the gift of teaching, then you be the best teacher that you can be for Jesus' sake.

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If you have the ministry of showing mercy, then show mercy to everyone, everywhere, cheerfully as unto the

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Lord. The list goes on. Just serve the Lord. Whatever that gift is, use it.

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Put it into practical use. Gifts were not given to sit on the shelf in our hearts.

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They were given to edify the church and to help us be the salt and the light that we need to be here in this world.

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So, use the gift. That's a wonderful New Year's resolution for all of us,

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I think. It's also, I think, good for us to remember that there is nothing wrong with making the plans.

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In other words, nothing that we're saying here is indicating that Christians are not, under any circumstances, somehow to look forward into a time period and say, here are things that I want to do.

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The book of James makes a reference in chapter four, talks about, you know, it's not good to say,

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I'm going to go into this town and that town, spend a year there, and trade and make profit, and so on and so forth.

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And the response that the Bible has is says, you have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, so you don't want to just presume those things.

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And it says you should be saying, if God wills, we'll do this or we'll do that. It doesn't say, no, you shouldn't be making those plans at all.

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It just says we need to remember that God's the one who's ultimately in charge of how those things go. And to what you were saying,

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Kevin, the statement that's made just a few verses after that is to say that if you know something that's right to do and you don't do it, that's a sin.

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So to what you were saying, if you know that you have gifts that God's called you to use, you should be using those.

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You ought to be doing that. And to share what you were saying, if there's something that we know that God wants us to do, we shouldn't be putting that off and say,

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I'm not going to start obeying God until January 1st. It's okay to say, okay,

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I'm going to resolve that in the new year, I want to be more diligent about this or more faithful about this, and so on and so forth.

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But we shouldn't be looking at that and saying, but until then, I'm just going to ignore what

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God wants me to do, because that calendar doesn't mean really anything to him.

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He wants us to follow his will and to obey him now. So I think it's okay for us to make resolutions.

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It's okay for us to come up with things that we want to do, but we want to be specific about how we're going to do it.

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We want to respond to God's will, and we want to keep in mind that he's going to be the one who's going to determine how those things happen.

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So we just need to focus on following God's will. What is it you want me to do? How do you want me to do it? And then

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I'm just going to let everything else happen according to your plans. Yeah. And another point that I wanted to bring up is when a

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New Year's resolution fails, don't look at that as, well, I might as well not try.

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No, if this is something you believe God wanted you to do, failing at it, for example, if your resolution was overcome a certain sin, well, say you fail

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January 10th, obviously that doesn't mean, well, I might as well just give up and start giving into that sin regularly again.

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No. As human beings, we are going to fail no matter what the resolution is. Vast majority of people fail at it, but don't let that be something that causes you to give up.

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Rather, okay, let's resolve again to focus on this, to, okay, what led me to fail in this particular area, and how can

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I avoid that same issue in the future? So if it's a resolution, something, again, that you think

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God wants you to do, a failure should be a motivating factor. Okay, how can

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I make an even stronger resolution? How can I better prepare myself so that the next time temptation presents itself or whatever it is,

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I don't give in, but don't allow failing one time or twice or three times at your resolution cause you to give up, but rather resolve again to focus with the

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Holy Spirit's power to accomplish what you believe God is calling you to accomplish.

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I think another thing that we should just put out there as a side note is to remember, we do want to be careful not to treat resolutions like a vow.

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In other words, scripture talks about things like saying, I promise this, or I swear this, and so on and so forth.

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Resolutions are good things for us to want to do, but as you're saying, Shay, we're fallible people, and we need to be careful not to put ourselves in a position of getting in the habit of making solemn vows and solemn promises to God or to ourselves or to other people about these certain things when we may not be as fully in control of them as we think we are.

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It's good to resolve that we want to do these specific things. We just want to be careful not to frame that in that,

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I swear, I promise, I take a solemn oath sort of a thing. Jeff, Kevin, happy new year to you.

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I hope you are fully successful in whatever, if any, the resolution God leads you to make this year.

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To our listeners, happy new year to you as well. This is the Got Questions podcast. Our goal is to always try to speak on biblical truth and to the questions that you have.

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So your slogan's kind of, your questions, biblical answers. So hope this conversation has been encouraging, beneficial to you.