Everywhere we turn - newspapers, magazines, blogs and sermons - we are being bombarded with suggested resolutions for 2009. During the next few days, health clubs will do a booming business, diet books will fly off of shelves, Bibles will be dusted off and opened to Genesis 1:1, and savings accounts will be opened.
Last week, caught up in this annual vow making mania, I started a list of "101 Things to do in 2009." Then, during a heart to heart conversation with my friend and ministry partner, Jerry Miller, I suddenly thought, "How stupid!"
Only one resolution is wise and worthwhile, to know Christ intimately.
Why not join me in trashing those long lists that are really all about us? Instead, copy the Apostle Paul's resolution in your journal.
“But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ —the righteousness from God based on faith. ⌊My goal⌋ is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached ⌊the goal⌋ or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:7-14)
Let us begin 2009 by remembering that it is all about Him.
Happy New Year!
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