By Ansley Zeccine
Published on January 30, 2008
Here we go! It’s time to tally up the month of January to see if we’ve been keeping our resolutions! Most people never manage to keep them, but of those who do, is there some secret to it?
It’s most important that we realize our priorities when it comes to making and keeping resolutions. If our priorities are wrong, then how can we make goals that are truly significant?
1 Timothy 4:8 says that “bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
We know that exercising is good for our bodies; we also know that it takes training and discipline to do it, but how does that compare to godliness? Physical exercise only benefits us while we are here, in this lifetime. Godliness, a spiritual exercise, benefits both now and for eternity, but it takes training and discipline as well. Clearly, godliness is to be prioritized above even bodily exercise.
Verse 12 says to “be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” If godliness is possessing, developing, and displaying certain characteristics of God’s very nature, and living according to the standard of the Bible, his word, then God, being the ultimate example of every virtue, has come to us with quite a challenge, though we are not alone.
During every moment of success, and seeming failure, we should draw solely on the power of God, who works in us to do of his good will, which brings the strength necessary for the achievement of our rightful goals and resolutions. Let us remember Lamentations 3:21-23, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
What a relief it is to know that, with God, every day is a new year!