Happy New Year!

This new year, resolutions won't be broken if we trust God with the burden of our sins. (with prayer)

Wouldn't it be a happier new year if we could keep all those resolutions we've made to do better? If you're like most of us, you find that it's easier to make a resolution than it is to keep one. That's human nature. It's been that way since the beginning of time.

Nineteen centuries ago, a man in Greece wrote a letter to a group of people in Rome. In the course of his remarks, the apostle Paul shared with them his own inner struggles as he weighed right and wrong. His honest admissions will be understood by those of us who annually resolve to do better next year.

"I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:18-19).

Doesn't this sound familiar? How accurately his words reflect our experience with regard to New Year's resolutions and life as a whole!

Why is it that even a person such as the apostle Paul must frankly admit a record of uninterrupted failures and broken resolutions? He provides the answer for each of us:

"Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it" (Romans 7:20). He's stating that the buck stops here with me! Because of my sinful nature, I choose the wrong and reject or neglect the right.

"What a wretched man I am!" Paul cries out. "Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25).

And for you, too, it is done. Jesus died on the cross for your sin. Trust Him now with the burden of your sin and you'll be free from its guilt. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

"You can pray something like this: "Dear God, thank You that You sent Your Son to die for me so that I can be free from the guilt of my sin and open to Your power. I invite Him into my life to be my Savior."

Resolve to live for Him now and you can learn, day by day, to live in the strength of God's power, not the weakness of your human nature. You'll begin more than a happy new year; you'll begin a new life!

© 2002 Good News Publishers. Used by permission.
Translated by permission of Good News Publishers
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