New.

January.

New year! New beginnings! Second chances! All month long, it's like we're giving out candy at a parade... toss out a bunch of happy phrases, and make sure everybody gets a piece!

But I confess... I've never really understood all the 'New Year' hype.

Obviously, as with any other holiday, it's a perfect time to get together with friends and family, and throw a party. It's (most often) a harmless celebration, an evening of charming festivities, a quick kiss from someone you love - and let's face it, there has NEVER been a better excuse to wear glitter.

But other than the festive offerings that the day has sometimes contributed to my social life, and the joy of putting a brand new calendar on my wall, the whole concept of the 'New Year's Resolutions' seems to fall a bit flat... and I think it's because I'm a Christian.

Here's what I mean by that:

As a Christian, I believe in change. I believe that humans can live different lives than what we often do. I personally want to see change in my own life. I am not perfect, and I want to improve. I want to be different than what I am sometimes. I want to form new habits. I want to witness change, and effect it.

And my heart starts beating faster, at that glorious hope of actually being altogether new... I long to feel new, to think new... I long to start fresh! To not have any scars, or bad habits, or difficult memories. I long to cast my pride away - so far away that it could never make its way back to me. I long to have a heart of courage, and leave my fearful heart behind! I long for a new body. One that doesn't ache or pop or get sick. I want a new way of perceiving the body that I have. I want a new mind. One that isn't susceptible to lies, or confusion, or fogginess. I want an entirely new way of processing thought.

Let's face it... I want new everything.

But the earth-shattering truth is that when I woke up on January 1, 2013, I was the same exact way as I was when I went to sleep on December 31, 2012. Nothing had changed. And the year before that, it was the exact same way. It's like, no matter who I want to become, I can never quite figure out a way to get there and stay there. Even before February arrives, I've given up - or simply forgotten - half of the resolutions that at one time felt so pressing.

And no matter what resolutions I wrote down on that piece of paper, or shared in that small group, or prayed for at midnight... every year, it turns out to still be the same old me, trying to be someone different.

And it's the same old you, and it's the same old we - making our resolutions that never last, because they are made by the same old us... and we are a people incapable of changing who we are.

We need Christ. I can never fully change - I can never really be made new, without Christ.

- - -

"... He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time, we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:15-17)

- - - 

The thing that I love about these verses, is the way they perfectly explain the balance between God's grace, and our responsibility. Paul makes it very clear in his letter to the church at Corinth, that Christ is the One who makes us new - not we, ourselves. (If you would like to read further evidence of this, check out Ephesians 2) But Paul also makes it clear in verse 15, that there is an intention for our new lives:

"... [Christ] died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ."

Resolutions can be good things, that simply serve to help us keep our life reined in and focused. Even Paul used the analogy of running towards a goal (Philippians 3:14), and there are several other instances in Scripture were God encourages us, through His people, to set our eyes on certain things (Colossians 3:2), to change certain habits (Proverbs), to engage in certain activities (Matthew 6:20), and to guard our lifestyles from laziness of all kinds (Luke 21, Mark 13).

But notice, that all of these goals and aspirations end in Christ, and becoming more like Him. 

All the 'New Years Resolution' hype comes down to this... the magic is not in the resolutions we make, nor in our efforts to keep them. If our resolutions are made for the purpose of becoming more like Christ, then we must also acknowledge Christ as the strength we will need in order to keep those resolutions (Phil. 1:6) By acknowledging Him as our source of strength, and by constantly dying to our resolutions and surrendering to His own, we will begin to truly experience more change than we could ever have imagined.

But if our resolutions are not made for the purpose of becoming more like Christ, and therefore are attempted without His strength and power - then we may work every day, every year for the rest of our lives, and never truly experience change like we long to experience it - in our hearts, our bodies, our minds, our actions, our lives... and we may never know that freshness, that safety and wholeness, of being completely made new by the power of Christ's resurrection in us.

He loves us. He longs for us to ask Him to change us.

And then... He does. Every minute, every day, every year... new.