It is wonderful to be at the start of a new year and let me take this opportunity to wish everyone all of God’s richest blessings for this coming year. For many of us this is the perfect time to set some fresh goals and to lay down how we would like things to go from this point forward. Having spent a bit too much, eaten a bit too much, watched telly a bit too much – new regimes are much in demand.
The month of January could well be dubbed the “graveyard of good intentions”. Great heaps of personal goals and new year resolutions come face to face with the harsher reality of everyday life. Paul, an apostle of Jesus, was a particularly farsighted man and he had a particular resolution that might serve us well as we face the prospect of another year stretching out ahead of us:
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2
This was never intended, of course, to be an absolute statement but rather his way of saying “the main thing needs to stay the main thing”, and in general this means Jesus Christ, and in particular this means his saving death on our behalf. The problem with a good many of our best intentions is that they are not very attainable, however seeking and knowing God is quite the another thing as God himself indicates that anyone who asks will receive, anyone who truly seeks shall find and to him who knocks it will be opened to him.
Take up Paul’s resolution for 2010 and you will see it is both attainable and fully sustainable.
