Today is New Year’s Eve and though I don’t make New Year’s resolutions every year, this year I am making several. Some are your typical ones that many people make like eating better, losing weight, working harder, learning guitar, learning Spanish, etc. I do want to make progress in all those areas, but as I thought about all the things I wanted to do, it struck me that as a Christian maybe I should check my resolutions against God’s Word.
In Matthew 2:34-40, a Pharisee asks Jesus which is the greatest of the Ten Commandments. Jesus replied that the first one, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind is the greatest and the second one is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God starts with honoring Him through earnest prayer and engagement in His Word, the Bible, every day. In loving our neighbor, we first must identify who our neighbors are; they are anyone besides us (starting with our closest neighbor, our spouse). Loving them means serving them and putting their needs ahead of our own.
So my first and most important resolution for 2020 is to be in constant conversation with God every day through prayer and His Word and the second, almost as important as the first resolution, is to love/serve my neighbors every day, starting with my closest one, my wife. It’s not that I don’t already do these things – I resolve to more deliberate in my execution, this year and beyond. Try it for yourself!
Thanks for reading, please comment below. Happy New Year!
