Making and Keeping Resolutions

Today's program was previously aired.

While the content is relevant, some of the announcements may be dated. For current ministry news and offers, go to thechristianworldview.org. To sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host of the program, and our website is thechristianworldview.org.

Welcome to the Christian worldview. We're so glad you joined us today as we discuss making and keeping resolutions. Now, the top New Year's resolution for 2017, at least according to an online site, is to, quote, lose weight and eat healthier, followed by these other resolutions which come right behind. Self-improvement, better financial decisions, quit smoking, do more exciting things, and spend more time with family and friends, and there were several after that as well. Now, nearly 50% of Americans will make a New Year's resolution, but only 8% will actually achieve them.

So why is there such a high failure rate? And perhaps more fundamentally, are resolutions even a good thing for a Christian to make? Is it just an act of the will and the flesh? And if so, if God does want us to make resolutions, what should our resolutions focus on? And how can we have a higher success rate?

How can we achieve them? So today on the Christian Real View, we're going to discuss making and keeping resolutions, and searching what the Bible says about resolutions, and looking at the life of one of the great American preachers, the Puritan Jonathan Edwards, and the 70 resolutions he made as a teenager. I think you're going to find that pretty hard to believe that an 18- or 19-year-old will make the kind of resolutions he did, if you've never heard about what he did, what kind of person he was throughout his life. But before we begin the topic today, I just want to spend just a second here thanking those of you who donated and supported the Christian Real View at the end of 2016, and all throughout the year actually as well. And we are just so grateful for your support of the program and the ministry, and we just loved getting your notes of encouragement that came along with your support. And so we just want to express how appreciative we are, and we're very much looking forward to broadcasting this year, Lord willing, as we strive to think biblically and live accordingly.

And so thank you so much for that. Okay, so I divided the program today into five questions about making and keeping resolutions. Why is keeping resolutions so difficult?

That's the first question. And there's probably lots of answers to that, but I just wrote down three things why keeping them is so hard. I think the first one is because change, just in general, change is hard. You know, we have habits, we have patterns of life that have been ingrained to us that we've lived for a long period of time. So adding something to that or changing what we already do, that's really difficult, because we all have very specific patterns that we live like. Number two, we all have varying degrees of discipline and willpower. We all know there are aspects of our life we'd like to change, but the discipline and the willpower to change is different between all of us, and it's often lacking to be able to change what we need to change. And I think people are far less disciplined today than they were 50, 100, and 200 years ago, as we're going to see with Jonathan Edwards. He used to awake at 4 a.m. every day and study 13 hours a day. I just don't think there are very many people running around today who have that kind of discipline or even half of that kind of discipline.

I know I don't. So we all have varying degrees of discipline and also willpower. Some people have very strong willpower in what they set their mind to.

They do it, and some don't. And number three, I think the reason why keeping resolutions is so difficult is because we may have unrealistic expectations about a resolution. In other words, you may have good intentions about changing something in your life or adding something to your life, but your schedule and your life circumstances may not allow you to do what you like to do. So, for instance, if you set the common resolution to go to the gym, let's say, three times a week for an hour this year, that might be easy for someone with a stronger will who has plenty of time in his schedule, but it's going to be nearly impossible for someone who has five kids and a full-time job to add even that, just three times a week for an hour a day to the schedule. So we don't want to set resolutions that are unrealistic for knowing ourselves to be able to keep, although I will say we always make time for what is important for us in life, though. In other words, things that are a priority to us, those are the things we make time for. So those are some of the reasons why I think keeping resolutions is so difficult.

But let's get to the more fundamental point. Does God even want us to make resolutions? I think the answer to that is, I think it depends. Does God want us to resolve to double our income this year at our job so we can just buy a bigger house?

I don't think so. Does God want us to lose weight, lose 30 or 50 pounds simply so we can have better self-image, feel better about ourselves, and if we're single to get more dates? I don't think that's something that God would want us to resolve to do, at least for that motivation. But does God want us to resolve to grow stronger in our faith and closer to Him?

Well, absolutely. So the root word of resolution is obviously to resolve, which goes to the will. It's an act of our wills, the mind, the will, the emotions. This is an act of doing. And God certainly wants us to engage our wills in the pursuit of growth, of growth in holiness or sanctification, but for His glory, not our own.

It's not just about self-achievement so we can feel better about ourselves, that we're a better person at the end of this year. No, it needs to have the right motivation linked to it for God's glory rather than our own. So as you read Scripture, you see these different examples of people in Scripture who resolve to do things, and it might be expressed not in the word resolve, it might be expressed in to purpose or to determine or decide or to make up one's mind. So look for those verbs in these, I just chose a couple passages here, like the passage in Daniel where Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are taken out of Israel. They're in captivity in Babylon, and it says right in the first chapter of Daniel, he made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank. In other words, when he was taken to Babylon, different culture, different religion, he had his own religion, Daniel did, and he did not want to be defiled by the Babylonian religion.

So he made up his mind. He resolved, you could say, before he left, he resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank. So there's one obvious resolution in Scripture.

Also you see in 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul writes to the Corinthians, listen to the idea of resolution here. He says, When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined, I resolved, to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So again here, an act of the will, not an emotion, I feel like I'm going to know nothing among you, if that's okay with you. No, I determined, I purposed, I resolved. Or another quick example in Philippians 3, we've all heard this passage where Paul says, I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, here's the resolution, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So that whole passage is full of an act of the will by Paul. He's going to resolve to press on one thing I do.

He set his mind on doing something. I have to press on for the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So the answer to this question is, does God even want us to make resolutions?

I think it's absolutely yes. Any resolution pursued for God's glory and accomplished in his strength is not only good, but I think it's actually called for. We should be resolving to do things for God's glory and accomplished in his strength. Scripture is just chock full of commands and imperatives for our growth. In other words, an imperative is a direct command. Do this, don't do that. And that's really what a resolution is.

We're going to do something, and hopefully, or that something, not hopefully, that something should be for God's glory and accomplished in his strength. So now just a little interlude story about Jonathan Edwards that I mentioned earlier. If you don't know who Jonathan Edwards is, he lived during the first half of the 1700s. He was born in 1703 and died in 1758, so he was only 55 years old when he died.

Didn't live a long life compared to the standards today. He was a Puritan, and he was a key figure in the Great Awakening in America. There was a time of revival in this country that went from basically, again, in the early 1700s between 1734 for about 15 years to about 1750.

This is before the Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, and all that. There was a big revival here at George Whitefield. The great preacher was a great evangelist, and Jonathan Edwards was part of that. And he became one of the most important pastors in American history.

You probably have heard of the sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Well, Jonathan Edwards was the one who wrote and gave that sermon. He was the author of several books. Probably the one that's most well-known by him today is The Freedom of the Will. It's a really well-known book by him, but he wrote many others.

The End for Which God Created the World. Very astute, deep, strong thinker Jonathan Edwards. He became the president of what is now Princeton College, before it was called Princeton, and he was actually the grandfather of the third president of the United States, Aaron Burr. So Jonathan Edwards was a towering figure in the history of this country in several different ways, but most specifically with the standpoint of his pastoring and his speaking and his preaching. Before he became all this, the Jonathan Edwards that we know about, between the ages of 18 and 19, so over that year when he was in his late teens, he made 70 resolutions over the course of that year.

And he was just starting out being a young pastor at that particular time in his life. And you can read these 70 resolutions online. We have them linked right now at thechristianwillowview.org. Just go into the preview for today's program and you can read his 70 resolutions that he made for himself when he was just 18 or 19 years old. And he starts out by saying this important preface to the 70 resolutions. I'm just going to read a few of them today, not all of them, but the preface is key from what we've been talking about already for why we resolve to do things. He said in the preface, being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake. And he said, remember to read over these resolutions once a week. In other words, he's saying just what we've been saying today, resolutions must be made for Christ's glory and pursued in his strength. Not just for personal discovery or personal improvement for the sake of improvement, but for Christ's glory in his strength.

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While the content is relevant, some of the announcements may be dated. For current ministry news and offers, go to thechristianworldview.org. Thanks for joining us today right here on the Christian World View radio program. I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Just a reminder, if you weren't able to attend the fall conference the weekend after the election with featured speaker Travis Allen and everything that went on that morning, we now have the DVDs and the CDs available to order right on our website, thechristianworldview.org, or just call us in our office at 1-888-646-2233 and we'll get those out to you. You can get it in either DVDs, in other words watch it on your television, or you can get it in a CD and listen to it in your car.

Each is a two DVD set with a nice cover and so forth. I think you'll enjoy the conference. It's just a morning conference.

It's about three hours of content with the radio program. I did a speaking session and so did Pastor Travis Allen as well. Okay, back to our topic, which is making and keeping resolutions.

We're talking about Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan, towering figure in early American history, part of the Great Awakening, president of Princeton College, what would become Princeton College, author of many books, Freedom of the Will and so forth. Well, he made these 70 resolutions. We have them linked on thechristianworldview.org so you can read them because they're just amazing to read. And as I mentioned before the break, he prefaced the making of these resolutions by just a short couple sentences saying that, being sensible that I'm unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake. And he says, then remember to read these resolutions once a week. So he was reading these 70 resolutions once a week. So you could divide, in the article we have linked on thechristianworldview.org, they didn't put them one through 70, they kind of put them according to categories. And the categories of the 70 resolutions have to do with one's life purpose, good works, time management, relationships, suffering, character, spiritual life, the scriptures, prayer, Lord's day, righteousness, the killing or mortification of sin, and communion with God.

So you can see that most of them have a very strong spiritual center to them. And so I'm just going to read about 10 of the resolutions for you to get a little taste of what this 18-year-old resolved to do. And he starts each one by saying, resolved.

Okay? So number 4 is, resolved. Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God.

In other words, everything I do in life is going to be for God's glory. Number 5, resolved. Never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. So there's one that you might even hear today, I want to be more diligent, I want to use my time better.

Number 9, resolved. To think much on all occasions of my own dying and of the common circumstances which attend death. So in other words, he wanted to go through life having in his mind that he wasn't going to live forever, that life was brief and that he didn't know the time of his death and that he was going to think about this as an impetus to help him live his life for the glory of God in the time that God gave him. He only lived 53 years again.

Number 10, resolved. When I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom and of hell. In other words, when he was feeling either physical or other kinds of pain, he wanted to think about those who have gone before him and been martyred for their faith, what they have gone through. This is nothing compared to what they have gone through. Or to think about how painful hell burning in the lake of fire for eternity would be. To have a better understanding and a more relative understanding of the pain that he's feeling now compared to martyrdom or hell. It's a powerful one.

Number 13, resolved. To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality. In other words, his faith wasn't just going to be an intellectual, you know, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge. I'm a very smart person.

I think he went to Yale when he was like 14 years old. That's how smart he was. And it wasn't just an accumulation of knowledge. It was to be faith plus good works. In other words, his faith is for, is evidenced by good works.

It's the purpose of it. You're not saved by faith plus works, but good works give evidence to saving faith, as it says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10. And so that was meant to be lived out. Not just intellectual, not just an accumulation of knowledge for myself, but to be, to seek out endeavoring to find objects of charity and liberality. Number 14, in Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions, resolved never to do anything out of revenge.

In other words, to be forgiving of those who offend us, not be bitter toward people, but never to do anything to hurt someone else out of revenge for hurting us. Skipping now to number 20, resolved to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. I think that's interesting how that is the first resolution of most people today that, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I read it earlier in the program. It was about eating and drinking, lose weight and eat healthier, was the first one, first resolution for Americans. Well, Jonathan Edwards had that as well, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.

In other words, not let food and drink control you, you control it. As Paul says, food is for the body and the body is for food, but he wasn't going to be taken over by it, wasn't going to be dictated to by his appetites. Number 23, Jonathan Edwards, resolved frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it. And if I find it not to be for God's glory, to repute it as a breach of the fourth resolution, which is to do everything for the glory of God. In other words, he wanted to examine his motivations for why he's doing things, to look at the intentions, the designs, what is my purpose, what is my ends, my ends for doing this. And if he found it not to be for God's glory, to repute it as a breach of the fourth resolution he made, which was to do everything for the glory of God. So he wasn't just concerned again with accumulating intellectual knowledge, he wasn't just concerned with doing good works outwardly to make himself look good. He was going straight down to the intentions, his motivations inside of his heart. And keep in mind, this isn't 18 or 19 year old Jonathan Edwards making these particular resolutions.

Just three more. Number 28, Resolved, to study the scriptures so steadily, constantly, infrequently, as that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. And this is obviously a very critical one. Surprised it was number 29, I'm not sure they were in any particular, or it was number 28. The study, the growing, the deepening of the knowledge and understanding of the scriptures so as to understand the mind of God so that we can understand what he wants us to do and so we can obey him more readily.

This is I think a very very key one. Number 29, Resolved, this one's on prayer. Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made that I cannot hope that God will answer it, nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept. In other words, he didn't want to pray anything that he didn't truly believe that God would want to answer in the affirmative. So he was probably praying everything according to God's will. He was very deeply thinking about what he was praying, not just pray for this, pray for that, I want this, I want that. He never wanted to pray for something that he didn't truly expect and know that it would be honoring to God and God would fulfill.

Number 37 of Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions, we're not going to go through all 70 again. Resolved, I finish with this one because this is kind of an interesting one that he would ask himself at the end of the day. Resolved, to inquire every night as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself, also at the end of every week, month, and year.

So at the end of every day, at the end of every week, at the end of every month, at the end of every year, he would ask himself, where have I been negligent? What sin have I committed? And where have I not denied myself in order to try to be self-examining? Of course, this is very biblical. Communion is a time where we examine ourselves to see if there's any unconfessed sin in our lives, to confess it and repent of it.

Test yourself, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith, the Bible says. There's this process of self-examination where we look honestly, try to look at ourselves with God's eyes and see how he sees us. And Jonathan Edwards resolved to do this at the end of every single day. So these are just amazing resolutions, and I encourage you to read them. They're linked again on our website, thechristianworldview.org, as you're thinking about potentially making some of your own resolutions here at the beginning of the year, maybe analyzing the resolutions you made, see whether they're for God's glory and are going to be accomplished in his strength, which we'll get to how to do that in a moment in the next segment. But to analyze, this might give you some good ideas for your own resolutions for this year.

Okay, we're going to take a break, but in the next segment we're going to open up the phone lines and hear the questions. With this example of Jonathan Edwards and the examples of Scripture, what kind of resolutions do you think God would have us make as we kick off 2017? And what's the best way to keep resolutions once we make them? And what happens if we can't keep them? Then what do we do?

All those questions are for you today here in the Christian worldview. Our toll-free studio number is 1-877-655-6755. What should our resolutions be?

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Why is the failure rate so high? Are resolutions even a good thing for Christians to make? Absolutely, yes.

It depends on what the resolution is. But resolutions that are done for the glory of God and for our spiritual growth closer to Him, those are not just good, but that's called for. We're to strive to grow closer to God and to be stronger in our faith and to be more robust in our Christian walk and to be better ambassadors. So any resolution that falls into that category, that we can be stronger and better witnesses for Him. Even if they're physically so, treating your body at the temple of the Holy Spirit, being in better condition and eating and drinking more temperately and not being gluttonous, those are all fair game, I think. Those are good resolutions to make.

So I think they're good, generally speaking, as long as they're done for God's glory, not our own. So the questions we are opening up the phone lines for for the rest of the program, though, are what kinds of resolutions? We talked about some, but are there specific kinds of resolutions that you think God would have us make as we kick off this year? And what's the best way to keep resolutions once we make them? If you have found a good way to do that, how do we have enough discipline and how do we keep the resolutions that we make at the beginning of the year? That would be helpful, I think, for people to hear if you've been successful at doing them. Our toll-free studio number is 1-877-655-6755.

Bob, we'll get you up on the call screening board and we'll get to some of your calls today here on the program. So let me try to answer that third question while some of you consider whether you'd like to call in and tell us what's the best way to keep resolutions once we keep them. What kind of resolutions do you think God would have us make? Well, I think if you look at Scripture, it's just full of imperatives, as we talked about, and commands that are God's will for us.

They all have one intent. All the commands of God in imperative Scripture have one intent, that we glorify, worship, and serve God through becoming conformed to Jesus Christ. That is really the purpose of the Christian life.

It's the purpose for everyone. God created us to be in relationship with Him, to know Him. He's our Creator.

He has authority over us. We are accountable to Him, whether we realize it or want to realize it or not. We're designed to be in relationship and to know Him and serve Him and worship Him. That's the purpose of life. When we do that, He wants us ultimately to become more like the perfect One, His Son, Jesus Christ. It says that very clearly in Romans 8, verse 29, For those whom God foreknew, in other words, believers, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

That is the purpose. If you're a Christian, that is your purpose, to become more like Jesus Christ. Now that you're in a right relationship with God, because He repented and believed in the gospel, which is who Jesus Christ is, the Son of God, and what He did for you on the cross, He took your sins, and He paid the penalty for them, and He credited you with His righteousness, that's the gospel. Once you've repented and believed in that and you've become converted, you've gone from an unbeliever to a believer, you've been regenerated, now what's the goal? Well, you already know God, so now the goal is to become more like His Son.

Now, you'll never get there in this life, of course, because you still have the flesh, you still have a sinful nature within us, a body of sin, Scripture calls about, but there's a pursuit of righteousness or of sanctification now that God calls us to do. And we can make huge strides in this with the resources that God gives us. So, as we think about what resolutions to make, we can just ask ourselves, I think, a simple question. What does God in His Word tell us to do? Whatever He tells us to do, we should resolve to do those things. So you may want to put them in categories. I wrote down just a few, and this is just my own list, I mean, there's lots of different categories you could go beyond this list, but I wrote down physical, spiritual, relational, charitable, and lifestyle.

Those general categories for making and keeping resolutions. So physical is one that people often start out with, I thought I'd start with that one too, because now that's the most important, it's not. But just because that's at the top of most Americans' New Year's resolutions.

So physical, you may want to think about exercising more regularly this year, eating more moderately, as Jonathan Edwards talked about, getting more rest. You know, the body is the temple of God and should be cared for, we should take care of it. 1 Timothy 4-8 says, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, and this is interesting, for bodily discipline, or physical discipline, is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life, and also for the life to come. And you can look at this verse a couple of different ways, you know, that bodily discipline is only of little profit, otherwise it doesn't matter much, so don't focus on it.

No, that's not what it says. It says the most important is your spiritual growth, the pursuit of godliness. But bodily discipline, or exercise, or taking care of your physical body, it's of little profit, but it does have some profit, so it is worth paying some attention to. And so, whatever you want to think about trying to be healthier this year from a physical standpoint, I think it's a good thing.

We should take care of the physical bodies God gave us. Spiritual category is the most important category as we think about resolutions, and this might be, again, might be pulling some of the things that Jonathan Edwards suggested in his resolutions. Reading the word daily, I think, is a key one.

If you're not in the habit or pattern of doing that, I think that would be a great thing to resolve to. To resolve to read the word of God daily, even just for five minutes. Maybe it's just one chapter a day of scripture. This is something in my own life, I'll just speak from a personal standpoint, that when I came to saving faith when I was 24 years old, true saving faith, I grew up in a Christian home, but it was a profession, not a true possession of saving faith. I may have perceived him as my Savior, but he certainly wasn't the Lord of my life, and what changed my life is when I came to repentance and faith in him. When I was 24, I realized how sinful I was. I couldn't change myself. Repented of my sin, put my faith in who Jesus Christ is, the Son of God, and what he did for me on the cross. And my life changed 180 degrees. And one of the things that was a key resolution in my life at that time, I realized how much I needed to be washed and to be renewed and transformed by reading the truth of God's word on a daily basis.

That has been something that has saved me from myself so many times, because we naturally tend away to our own human reasoning, even after a day or two. It's like, why do you need to eat every day? I think God designed us to eat every day because it was to be an example of how much we needed spiritual food every day as well. Why do we need to eat three times a day?

Why did God design us that way? I think it's just an example, an illustration of the same thing we need to do when it comes to our spiritual food, spiritual intake of reading the word, praying, doing spiritual things, taking in, relating, knowing God on a daily basis. We need that spiritual nourishment every single day. So if you are a believer and you're not doing that, there's no way you can grow stronger in your faith without taking in the word of God on a daily basis. And you can also take in the word of God, by the way, by hearing the word preached. On the radio, there's podcasts, there's many ways to hear sound biblical preaching, so you can take it in that way. But I don't think there's any better way, or maybe no equally important way to take it in yourself as well, to read the word of God daily. Maybe you want to read through the Bible this year.

It's not actually very hard to do. It's really about four chapters a day, or maybe don't read through it in a year, maybe read through it in two years. There's lots of online reading plans that you can do this. Or just read through the New Testament this year. Read one chapter a day through the New Testament. And getting that overview of understanding, the broader understanding of Scripture, that's really important and very helpful in your life as well. So if you don't think you can make it through the whole thing, just take a little less and read as much as you can. So another thing you might want to do is memorize and meditate in the passage of Scripture. Memorization becomes a little more difficult as you get older, and you watch younger kids that can just memorize anything.

Their brains are sponges. But memorizing and meditating, I mean by that, not some Eastern meditation where you center yourself on yourself, but when you meditate it means you just think about and ruminate on a passage of God's Word and what it means and how you should apply it. That would be a good thing to resolve to do this year. Maybe have a more disciplined prayer life. I think it's easy to pray 30 seconds before dinner and move on, but you see in Scripture examples of not only of Christ, praying all night, but Daniel praying three times a day, having a prayer list and so forth.

This is something I definitely would like to improve on, is having a more disciplined prayer life. Perhaps it's taking in a sermon one time a week outside church. We can go to church and that's my sermon for the week and now what am I doing the rest of the week? How about listening to a message sometime during the week just at home? In other words, another way to take in the Word of God, to hear it preached so you supplement what you're getting on Sunday.

In the age we live in it's so easy to do that. Another category you may want to think about resolving to do this year has to do with relationships in your marriage. Fulfilling the commands in Ephesians 5 to love and respect. Spouses are to love and respect each other. Husbands love their wives, wives respect your husbands. How could you do that better? Or with regard to parenting, how can we raise our children better in the discipline and instruction of the Lord?

Are there concrete things we need to do in that regard? Maybe it's having a personal time of devotions each day with your family, reading the Bible, maybe a chapter of the Bible after dinner with your family, maybe singing a hymn before they go off to school or reading a short devotional. Things like that that will nurture spiritual growth in you and your family. We'll take a break, we'll come back, we'll talk about a couple more categories and then talk about what's the best way to keep resolutions once we make them.

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That's 1-888-646-2233. Today's broadcast of the Christian Worldview was previously aired. Okay, final segment of the day here on the Christian Worldview radio program as we talk about making and keeping resolutions. We're actually going to talk more about resolutions in a way next week on the program as we talk about the recent UN resolution against Israel that the US was behind apparently and how negative that is for the state of Israel. We'll be talking next week about that topic, the UN resolution. But this week we're talking about just regular New Year's resolutions and are they good and if so, which ones should we make? If you missed a lot of the program, I encourage you to get the podcast or just hear it, click and play it on our website.

Later today, usually it's up on our website. Hear about Jonathan Edwards and the 70 resolutions he made as a teenager and you can also read those on our website, thechristianworldview.org. At the end of the break, we were talking about categories of resolutions to make at the beginning of the year here. What are some good categories? We talked about physical things, you know, disciplining your body and so forth. Spiritual things are the most important, taking in the word on a regular basis. We talked about relational, a category of focusing on if you're married, your marriage or if you have children, raising children. Things like that are so key.

Or here's another category, two more before we get on to what's the best way to keep them. Charitable. This is something that I think we've heard a little bit on the program last year, and that was from Rosaria Butterfield.

If you remember that program, she talked about how the hospitality of a pastor in Syracuse, New York led her to saving faith in Christ and how Christians are called to be charitable. So you may want to invite people into your home, both believers and unbelievers this year, just to have conversations, to interact with people, with the purpose of sharing the good news with them. It doesn't have to be the first time. It doesn't have to be awkward to them.

Just sow some seeds and see what God does. And I think there's benefit in doing that. Christian hospitality or helping the less fortunate. It's easy in America to drive in our garages and push the button and have it come down and then move on with our life and not see or help anyone else who's far less fortunate. So having a charitable category to your resolutions might be something to consider as well.

And then how about the simple lifestyle category? This might be watching less television. Very easy to come home, watch whatever is on television, even if it's Fox News and watch endlessly the same stories talked about by different guests for two or three hours every night. You know, other programs on television just to kind of let your brain go and so forth. And I think a little bit of TV watching is not a bad thing.

But you might want to read more this year. There's so many good books or things that will stimulate you mentally and spiritually that it might be good to get away from some of the scream time that we all, I think, fight against. Another lifestyle resolution might be to take a day off from your cell phone or from the Internet. That's something I've been thinking about doing because these phones are ubiquitous. They're always in your hand and so easy to be tied in and to be seeing the most recent text that comes in, the latest Facebook post or, you know, just, you know, shopping or whatever you do on your phone or your computer all the time, just getting away from it for a day a week.

I know sometimes when I'm forced to do that, I always think that was kind of nice and might be something you want to consider doing. Okay, last couple points, two last questions for the show today. So we've gone over why is keeping resolutions so difficult? Does God even want us to make resolutions?

And the answer is yes. Question three is what kind of resolutions do you think God would make? We just went over that with the various categories. And then question number four is what's the best way to keep resolutions once we make them? And this is an important one because it's good to have intentions to make them, but how do we follow through?

Number one, be realistic in setting resolutions. In other words, if I resolve to run five miles a day, five times per week, five miles five times per week, I have no chance of doing that. I have no interest in doing that. So why make a resolution to do something that's completely unrealistic for me? But if I resolve something more realistic to say I'd like to go for a one hour brisk walk with the dogs five times a week, well, that I'm able to do because I have an interest in doing it. That's much more realistic for me. I'm not going to wear up my knees and hips. I've spent too many times running in my life as it is already. So that's much more doable. So be realistic in the resolutions you set, even with regards to like we talked about Bible reading.

I'll tell you about in a second. I had to even back off something I was intending to do this year already because I realized it was unrealistic. Number two, write your resolutions down and see how they can fit into your schedule. Actually, for the first month or two, put them into your schedule so that you can actually see whether you're going to be able to keep them or not. Habits don't form on their own.

They're going to have to be added into your schedule. And number three, the best way to keep them is to pursue them. This is the important one. Pursue them in the light of Philippians 2, 12, and 13, where Paul writes, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And this seems to be a contradiction as you read this verse. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Okay, well, you've got to do it. But then the next verse says, for it is God who works in you, both to give you the will and to work for his good pleasure.

So which is it? It's like there's this tension there. You work out, and God is at work in you. I think what is being said here is that, yes, we're to, like Jonathan Edwards said in his preface, we're to rely on God's strength to pray that we be able to keep resolutions that are for his glory. But we're also called to do something, too. We're not going to be able to resolve, using that word, how these things work out in the mind of God.

This is probably above how we can understand. What does God do? What does we do?

What do we do? I don't think we need to focus too much on that. It's sort of like, how are we saved by God's grace, by God's unmerited favor through faith? But we're also called to repent and believe. Well, that's the unanswerable question in our human finite minds. We cannot answer that.

It's the same thing with keeping resolutions. How do we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and how is it that God is working in us? It's both. They're parallel tracks.

It's like a train track. They're both going the same direction, and they're both true. God is at work in us, and we are to work as well. So those three things, I think, are the keys to trying to keep your resolutions this year. Be realistic in setting them, write them down, get them into your schedule, and pursue them in the light of Philippians 2, 12, and 13, knowing that God is at work in you, but you're called to work as well, knowing that He will give you the will to be able to fulfill what He wants to do in your life. And finally, what happens if we can't keep our resolutions? How do we keep from getting bogged down?

Realize there's a benefit in growth, even in the striving. You're going to be further along if you set a resolution and don't achieve it if you don't even set it in the first place. You know what I mean? If you aim for nothing, you're sure to hit it.

You're not going to go anywhere. So even setting resolutions, the striving for it, you're going to be moving partially in the right direction, even if you don't get all the way there. And the second thing is, if you can't keep it, don't abandon it. Just dial it back a little bit.

I'll give you an example. I had purpose to read the whole Bible this year along with all the study notes, and I got into it and realized, you know what, this is going to be way too much reading for me to do that's just unrealistic. So I had to dial it back and say, okay, I'll do the New Testament and do all the notes in the New Testament.

So be realistic and just dial back rather than abandon. I hope some of this was helpful today as you think about making and keeping resolutions in 2017, because we do live in a changing and challenging world. But there is one thing we can always trust in and count on. Jesus Christ and His Word. They are the same yesterday, today and forever.

We'll talk to you next weekend, everyone. The Christian Worldview is a weekly one-hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233. Or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.