How Are You Coming Along With Your Resolutions?

Well, we’re already two months into the new year. The virus is still with us, but now we have vaccines. We have a new President, but some politicians and factions in our country are still aggressively hating the former President. We’re still wearing masks, social distancing and washing our hands – at least most of us are. So 2021 is still looking suspiciously like 2020.

 

Which brings us to the question at hand: How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions? Have you made the changes you intended to make? Are you making progress on losing those pounds you added over the holidays? Have you succeeded in breaking that bothersome habit? How about that hobby you promised yourself you would finally take up – have you done that yet?

 If all or most of your answers to these questions are in the negative, take heart. We’re in good company, millions of fellow humans whose best intentions have yet to reach fruition. Resolutions – and even goals – seemingly are meant to be broken or disregarded. They make us feel good while making them, but lead to frustration when we fail to keep them.

 

When I said we’re in good company, I can cite none other than the apostle Paul, who admitted struggling with similar challenges. He said, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). We’ve all been there, right? ‘Why do I do what I don’t want to do, but find myself unable to do the things I want to do?’

 

Right after this, however, Paul wrote something that at first glance seems like passing the buck, refusing to accept responsibility for his failures: 

“And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.” 

 

Then he concludes with the declaration, “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:16-20).

 

When I read this years ago for the first time (and a few times after that), I thought, “What in the world is Paul talking about?” It reminded me of the excuse often employed by the late comedian Flip Wilson’s character, Geraldine: “The devil made me do it!” Later I came to realize that comparison wasn’t far off. 

 

The apostle wasn’t writing about shedding a few pounds, or not keeping a personal commitment to start building bird houses. He was referring to insidious, inescapable sin. The Bible speaks about our having a sin nature, one we’re born with and remains with us until we die. However, when we’re “born again,” as Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3,7), we receive a new nature. 

 

For whatever reason, even though we’re made “new creations” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), God chooses not to eliminate our sin natures. As a result, throughout our lives we wrestle with internal conflict, sometimes doing things we don’t really want to do and not doing things we sincerely desire to do. But there’s good news.

 

In another of his letters, Paul wrote, “I can do everything through [Christ] who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Speaking to His disciples, Jesus declared the importance of their dependence upon Him if they are to accomplish anything of eternal value: “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). 

 

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome our old nature – which some translations of the Bible term, “the flesh.” So, unlike the disclaimer of the comic character Geraldine, the devil can’t make us do anything – if we are reborn in Christ. (But the enemy can make some enticing suggestions.)

 

Whether we’re striving to overcome besetting sins, or simply seeking to follow through on worthwhile resolutions or goals we embraced on Jan. 1, we have the Lord’s strength to persevere them until we’ve fulfilled them. ‘I can do all things – through Christ!’ 

The ‘Born That Way’ Dilemma

Imagine a young man talking with his fiancé as the wedding day approaches and informing her, “Hey, babe, I really love you, and I don’t want you to hear this the wrong way, but there’s something you need to know. Every night I spend about an hour looking at pornography online. I hope you’re okay with that – it’s something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. Guess I was just born that way.”

How do you think the bride-to-be should respond?

Or consider a woman caught in an adulterous affair outside of her marriage. Her husband, who’s been completely faithful to her, feels devastated. Remorsefully the wife looks at her husband and says, “Honey, please don’t take this personally. I love you, but I’ve never been a one-man kind of woman. I think our marriage is great, but sometimes, you know, I enjoy the company of other men. Sorry, but I suppose I was just born that way.”

Does that make sense?

We could think of other scenarios: A compulsive gossip; someone given to uncontrollable fits of anger; a person consumed with jealousy over the professional success of coworkers; an individual caught up with envy (what the Bible calls “coveting”) over a friend’s much bigger, far more expensive house or luxury car; an able-bodied man with no initiative who refuses to seek a job; someone whose pattern of dishonesty makes it virtually impossible to know if or when he’s telling the truth.

Should we give any of them a pass when they offer the excuse, “I was born that way”?

Frankly, every one of us could use that rationale to explain objectionable behavior. After all, the Bible says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). This doesn’t mean the sexual act that resulted in conception was wrong. It’s stating just as parents pass along genetic heredity to their children, resulting in specific physical characteristics and traits, from the beginning of time mankind also has passed on the “sin gene” from generation to generation.

Any parent knows you don’t have to teach children to become selfish. They are born that way.

Certain people are predisposed toward diseases like cancer, heart disease, obesity or alcoholism. While others are never troubled by such problems, these individuals must deal with them for much of their lives. Perhaps it’s true they were “born that way.” Should we therefore refuse to offer help or support in their desire to overcome these besetting challenges?

The vast majority of men find themselves confronting lustful thoughts, often sparked by a casual glance. They see an attractive woman, whether in a mall, on a beach, or even in church, and suddenly find themselves entertaining inappropriate thoughts about that person. Since most men are “born this way,” prone to visual provocation, does this mean it’s to be approved of, condoned, even applauded?

We could make similar observations about women, but the point is when it comes to sin – a word the Bible often uses, which many in society would like to eradicate – we all have been “born that way” in one respect or another. As Romans 3:10 declares, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” Later the Bible asserts, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Being unique, we all have our own assortment of pet sins and weaknesses. Our spiritual predisposition, from birth, is toward spiritual brokenness in one respect or another. So it troubles us to read passages like Philippians 2:3-4 that admonish, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” We want to respond, “Are you kidding? If we don’t look out for ourselves, our best interests, who will? Besides, I can’t help it.”

The fact is, areas of sin that afflict each of  us – behaviors we’d like to shrug off and defend with, “I was born that way” – often are beyond our capacity to change. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes. But the good news, it’s not up to us alone to make the changes.

Jesus told His followers, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the apostle Paul – who understood human struggles as well as any – wrote with confidence, “I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

So whatever it is we’re wrestling with, seemingly overwhelming problems that just won’t go away, there’s hope. Hope in the life-changing, transforming power of Jesus Christ. The cliché might sound trite, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Sometimes it just requires willingness to “let go – and let God.”