What conclusions can we draw about making New Year’s vows from the scriptural passages we’ve looked at? While those resolutions tend to fail miserably, there is good reason for hope. We can truly be changed.
The key, as we’ve seen, is found in Romans 12:1–2, that we are not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. The renewal of our mind is contrary to the world’s method that insists upon reform. So whatever this renewal is, it is not of the world.
2 Corinthians 4:16 tells us that the outer man is decaying, i.e. or flesh. In contrast, the inner person is being renewed day by day. We can infer that that renewal has to do with our inner spirit.
The context of Ephesians 4:20–24 has to do with non-believers (the Gentiles) living in sensuality. That is not how we learned Christ; we are to lay aside the old self. Instead, we are to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, to put on the new self in the likeness of God
Colossians 3:8–11 informs us that we are to put off the old self with its evil practices, to put on the new self that is related to Christ; Christ who is all and in all.
Titus 3:5–7 tells us that we are saved by God’s mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. We are justified through Jesus Christ by his grace.
In all these passages, there is great cause for hope. Renewal is connected to God, to the work of the Holy Spirit, to Jesus. The renewal is spiritual in nature; it is not centered in our own human flesh, it is not based on us trying to gut out needed change. How true change takes place is in direct opposition to how the world operates, to what the world tells us.
Hebrews 12:1 (NAU): Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
What are we to do? We are to lay aside whatever hinders us, to cease sinning, sin that so easily entangles us and trips us up. The good news is that as believers in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, empowering us. While we must do those things, it is through the strength of the Holy Spirit that laying aside sin becomes possible. We aren’t stuck trying to accomplish things in our own strength.
Through Christ, real change is possible. We don’t have to be stuck in that endless cycle of vowing to change and them failing.
“Reform” doesn’t work: neither for unbelievers nor for believers
There is only one option to truly be changed: placing faith in Jesus Christ, to be born again; to then let and have the Holy Spirit cleanse, renew, and change us.
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