New Year Reformations


I am skeptical about resolutions. Seems to me that resolutions dissolve like Alka-Seltzer. Some fizz and maybe we feel better for a bit with changes in attitude and behavior. But then the acid test of the everyday kicks back in. Same problems, same issues, same me.

However, I have great hope in God changing us. If the Gospel were to be reduced to a series of maxims, one would be: God can change people. It is Good News. If the Gospel only kept us where we are, that would hardly be something to call good. It would be the Bad News. 

Often when we clamor for God to change something, it is is either a circumstance or someone else. I know I pray this way, when I bother to pray that is. Yet, God has only made me responsible for myself. Even though I am responsible for me, I can't change me, for I am the problem. So, here is how it works:

I confess that I need to change but can't. God concurs with that assessment and then changes me through His grace. A gift given and gratefully received.  

"For God has shut up all men in unbelief," not that he may destroy all or suffer all to perish, but "that he may have mercy upon all" [ Romans 11:32]. This means that, dismissing the stupid opinion of their own strength, they come to realize that they stand and are upheld by God's hand alone; that, naked and empty-handed, they flee to his mercy, repose entirely in it, hide deep within it, and seize upon it alone for righteousness and merit. For God's mercy is revealed in Christ to all who seek and wait upon it with true faith. In the precepts of the law, God is but the rewarder of perfect righteousness, which all of us lack, and conversely, the severe judge of evil deeds. But in Christ his face shines, full of grace and gentleness, even upon us poor and unworthy sinners. - John Calvin 

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