New Year's Vows: Are they Biblical? Part 4

New Year's Vows: Are they Biblical? Part 4
Thursday, February 19, 2026 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Thought for Today / Truth telling

For genuine change to happen, we must be born again. As we’ve seen, biblically speaking, all of us start out spiritually dead. Due to the reality of sin, each one of us starts our life in that state.

It is also clear that a dead thing cannot make itself alive. That dead prize rose bush, is dead. The end. All the fertilizer, water, telling it “sweet nothings” won’t change its status. It is dead.

Another long-standing idea is that through our own efforts, we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. In the end, how does that work out? It doesn’t. Gravity intervenes, and our “bootstraps” end up right back where they started. As we also saw, while we might overcome one addiction through our own efforts, another addiction typically takes its place. Big picture, no lasting real change takes place.

The needed strength must come from outside ourselves.

1 Peter 1:3–5 (NAU): Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

The most thorough discussion is found in John 3, in Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus.

John 3:1–8 (NAU): Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The point is that a spiritual birth is required. That birth only happens through the power of the Holy Spirit, via faith in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. IN addition, as John 6:44 tells us, unless God himself draws us, we cannot be saved. It is not something we can do on our own.

Romans 5:6–8 (NAU): For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Through Jesus Christ, we can have life; we can be transformed from death to life. There is no other alternative, no other options. Salvation and the life that follows comes only through Jesus Christ, not through Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Buddha, nor through other Eastern religions.

As God states in Colossians, it is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

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