It’s the New Year. Are you resolved?

This is about the time of year when gyms and health clubs see a spike in memberships.  Losing weight, shaping up, working out – whatever term people use – is a very popular new year resolution.  The problem is that the resolve dissipates after a few weeks.  Memberships lie dormant and finally expire.  It’s pretty common this time of year.

I understand why, do you?  Life is busy.  Unless a person is resolved to consistently reprioritize his or her time, things have a way of crowding in on the new year resolution.  We are creatures of habit.  It’s just really hard to break eating habits.  We vow to drink more water – but soon we don’t follow through.  We are resolved to eat healthier, but it’s faster and easier to grab a burger at the drive-through window and get on to the next thing on the list.  Besides, they taste so good!

It seems to me that resolutions to grow in the Word of God are like that, too.  We want to know the Bible better.  We wish we knew more about our faith – not only what we believe, but why we believe it.  When the subject of religion comes up in conversations (and it often does), we want to be more articulate about our faith.  And so we resolve in the new year to do something about that.  We’ll get into a Bible class.  That’s just the ticket!  And it truly is!

But then life happens.  A packed schedule all week leaves us with Sunday morning as the only time for ourselves.  We’ve jammed so much into our weekly “to do” list, that we just can’t (to be honest – we just won’t) jettison something to make room for spiritual growth.  Or we imagine that a Bible class is going to be heavy on the abstract and light on concrete relevance to real life.  And so we don’t continue the class.  Or we don’t start in the first place.  And next year we will go through the same exercise all over again.

Let me pass along to you God’s call and encouragement to make this new year different.  He wants to have a closer relationship with you.  He knows you perfectly well, but he wants you to know him better.  That only happens through the Word of God.  Let me say that again:  Knowing God better only happens through the Bible.  That’s where he explains himself and his wonderful plan for us.  That’s where he talks to us about life and death and marriage and love and fulfillment and faith and integrity and value as a person and sin and forgiveness and so much more.  The Scriptures are WAY more relevant to the things that really matter in life and for eternity than many people give them credit for. 

So be resolved to know more, and in that way, grow more.  Ascension Lutheran Church stands ready to help you with that.  Right now we offer you two ways to know and grow:  our Sunday morning Bible class that gets heart-deep into Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, and the Bible information class I teach on Thursday evenings.  Check out our website for more information.  Call me and we’ll talk about how you can get started.  It’s free and it’s for you.

So be resolved.  We’ll be resolved right along with you!