New Year, New You

People are willing to pay big bucks to change their lives. “We don’t buy products,” some marketers say, “we buy better versions of ourselves.” It might not be packaged that way, but in essence that’s what a lot of us spend our money trying to gain.

We buy clothes that make us look more appealing. Or we buy a car that everyone will notice. If we’re honest, we all want to change something about ourselves. But not everybody reaches what they hope for. Clothing fades, shoes wear out, and that new car becomes your old car. In the end, you’re left the same person as before.

Sometimes we decide to go to church because we hope it will save our marriage, or make our kids more obedient, or fix a problem that’s left us desperate. Sometimes we reach the open doors of the church at the end of a spree of bad decisions, and we fear the guilt will haunt us for a long, long time.

We come to an impasse, and the same dreaded question lingers in the corner of our thoughts: Am I too far gone to turn back to God? Will He even take me back anymore? Or maybe it’s too late for me. Maybe there’s no way I can change and I’m stuck going down the path of destruction.

Whenever these thoughts assail you, stop right there. Put them to death—they’re nothing but lies from the pit of Hell. There’s only one way to fight back the lies of the enemy, and that’s with the life-giving truth of God’s Word.

Jesus says it best in His Sermon on the Mount: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) The door to a better life is narrow—but it’s always open. If we still have breath in our lungs, we can turn it all around with the strength that God provides. It’s not too late, and that’s exactly why we should pursue change today, leaning on our steadfast King.

Anchored in Christ

We change like the seasons. On a whim, we’ll follow trends that come and go. Our sports and political allegiances shift with the ever-changing major players. In truth, our hearts are anything but steadfast.

But Jesus isn’t like that; He never changes. He’s the solid rock, a mighty fortress, our anchor in the storm. He’s “the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Rather than being old-fashioned and outdated in a world that never stops moving on, He is the objective standard of everything that is good, lasting, and worthy of pursuit. And when we follow after Him, we begin to see changes worth making in our lives. We change to align ourselves with Him.

Two Kinds of Change

This contrast between our waywardness and God’s unchanging nature is critical. We place our hope in Him because He is always trustworthy, always true. No one else can make that claim. Even Satan has changed! Think about that—the powers of darkness were once part of God’s unbroken creation. But when they fell into rebellion, they changed. Sin brought the change, and this change started with a choice— the choice to reject God.

The same is true of us. All too often we try to change ourselves by choosing the broad road, and we end up getting burned by it. But every choice can go the opposite way.

Life with God begins with a decision to choose God: choosing His way, not ours; His values, not the world’s; His wisdom, not the trends of the age.

We make many choices every day, but the riskiest decisions are always the ones with an uncertain outcome. We could ask that special someone out on a date, for instance, though we don’t know if they’ll say yes. We can make the sales pitch, though maybe we’ll get denied. We can fill out the job application, though we might be rejected.

But the decision to choose God is one that has an already-defined outcome. If we choose God, He will always say yes, always welcome us with open arms. He even surprises us by saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last...” (John 15:16)

Today, make the kind of change that matters, the change that comes as we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. “...where the Spirit of the Lord is,” Paul writes,  “there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”  (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

The Gift of Today

So, if God is our refuge in a broken world, why is it so hard to make the decision to follow His ways and walk in the Spirit? What ends up holding us back?

For one thing, fear keeps us bound in our brokenness. We’re afraid of what others think. We fear that if we try to follow God, we’ll fail. We might honestly be scared of what God thinks of us. But, mostly, we fear the unknown of what it means to walk with Him.

Following God is a risk; Jesus makes that clear. The world, your family, and your friends might not understand this journey you’re on. But don’t let fear cripple you from the change God is calling you to make in your life. The risk of remaining the same is far greater than the challenge of following Him.

We’re also prone to convincing ourselves that we’ll make the change later. The problem with waiting until tomorrow is that, when tomorrow finally arrives, we decide to keep postponing. And on and on it goes; tomorrow never becomes today.

We play this mental dance all the time. Tomorrow is more promising; tomorrow is more convenient; tomorrow is always the best time to change our lives. But tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Tomorrow is unpromised and undelivered. A certain someone once said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift—which is why we call it the present.” You’ll always live in the present, so choose God today.

Day One

There’s a brand-new year ahead of you. Now’s the time when everyone’s out to reinvent themselves. But instead of jumping on the latest trends, make a resolution to run after the God who has loved you from the start. Even if you’ve been walking with Christ your whole life, this new year is your time to fall head-over-heels in love with Jesus all over again. Today is day one of the rest of your life. Make it a day that has everlasting significance.