Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Beginnings (05/31/04)
|
TITLE: New Year's Resolutions By Lana Fletcher 06/03/04 |
 LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
SEND ARTICLE TO A FRIEND
|
Those words elicit a variety of responses:
1) Some ignore the whole idea
2) Some welcome the challenge to "try harder"
3) Some know they are setting themselves up for failure when they make the resolution, but they do it anyway--hoping this year will be different.
What response did the Apostle Paul have toward resolutions?
Before his conversion, he was definitely in the "try harder" category and doing very well from what he tells us.
But after his conversion He didn't seem to:
1) Ignore the idea, because he said, "I press toward the mark" and "I have finished my course".
2) Try harder because he learned that didn't work. He said, "For what I do is not what I want to do, but what I detest."
3) Set himself up for failure. He admitted, "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."
By the end of the Bible chapter he was giving an answer. "Who shall deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Scattered throughout his letters he tells us the same thing again and again. "He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it" "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." "My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
Paul was "fully persuaded that, what Jesus had promised, He was able to perform" and "He is faithful that promised".
For Paul the formula was simple. Our will + His power = willpower or guaranteed success with our resolutions, our beginnings.