The Resolution Your Heart Wants to Make

Devotional

As each year begins, we often wish our families and friends a “Happy New Year.” But did you know that those words, or at least their equivalents, were first spoken by the ancient Babylonians around four thousand years ago? Yet fast-forward to today and New Year’s Day is the most universal of all holidays, celebrated by people of all religions and cultures around the world.

When I think of the new year, I often think of making resolutions. And even this tradition, as old as the holiday itself, was invented by the Babylonians. Their most popular New Year’s resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment (which is not a resolution I’ve ever needed to make). But like them and like most people, I typically begin each year by creating goals around what I want to start doing and what I want to stop doing.

In that spirit, let’s begin our new year by making the resolution your heart most wants to make.

Bob Buford’s bestselling book, Halftime: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance, helps us understand the difference between the two. Success is for now; significance is forever. Success is fleeting; significance is transcendent.

You and I were made for significance. We were made to outlive ourselves, to leave a legacy beyond ourselves. As we begin this year, there is something in us that wants this year to matter when the year is done. But there’s only one pathway to true significance.

The Apostle Paul declared, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And this promise is for you—no matter the guilt you may carry from the past, challenges you face in the present, or the fears you have for the future.

The moment you choose to be “in Christ,” which means to have a personal relationship with Jesus, you become a “new creation.” You are “born again,” as Jesus said in John 3:3.

Now, you have the honor of helping someone else experience the same grace. The truth is, God made you for this simple purpose: to know Christ and to make him known. Everything else is a means to this end.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he already does. But there is a catch: this gift of God must be received. Like Christmas presents under the tree, the gift of salvation must be opened.

Have you opened your gift yet? Are you a “new creation”? Have you been “born again”? Do you remember the day when you asked Jesus to forgive your sins and failures and turned your life over to him as your Savior and Lord?

If not, why not today?

If you are a new creation in Christ, begin the new year by seeking to know him and to make him known. Allow his presence and his word to heal and transform you as you get to know him more deeply this year. This is the path to true significance.

And it’s the resolution your heart most wants to make today.