A few months ago author Jerry Jenkins asked on his Facebook page, “What is your favorite holiday and why?” After I commented, he agreed with me—we both look forward to New Year’s Day because it’s a chance for a fresh and new start. It’s a chance to leave all the mistakes and painful moments of the previous year behind. Singer Taylor Swift once noted, “This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change.” And then she would share her dreams how to begin again in a song. And that’s what this first all new blog in two years will be about, what’s new!
This is a timely and appropriate blog for many of us, since today is the first day of the new year and it holds the promise of 365 days of change. There will be countless opportunities to experience new things and meet new people. And there will be many opportunities to see if we really learned anything from the mistakes we made last year. Unfortunately, many people overlook the tremendous potential that comes with a new year and instead choose to keep doing business as usual. King Solomon wrote a whole PROVERB about this and called it FOOLISHNESS (Proverbs 26:1–28). Most people, even Christians have adopted a flawed mentality of keep trying, believing and reaching for the stars, and one day you’ll HAVE IT ALL.
I confess I used to believe this as well. I used to BELIEVE that I can be strong enough, attractive enough, brave enough and good enough to do anything; to make my dreams come true. The great Albert Einstein wisely stated, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I must admit, insane is the perfect word to describe how I used to feel while chasing after the temporary crap of this world that can never SATISFY my longing for peace.
But, then I came to the cross of Jesus—which demands that I surrender everything to Jesus, most of us have no problem letting go of the bad things in our lives, we want Jesus to help us with our obvious problems with sex, drugs, alcohol and gambling; the things we call sin. But we’re scared to death to let go of our dreams, heart’s desires or anything that isn’t inherently bad. And so we use the cross to justify our selfish desires and we keep holding on to our pasts. Yet we pray, “THY KINGDOM COME, thy will be done?”
We keep trying to hold on to our lives instead of actually surrendering everything to Jesus. This means HOLDING NOTHING BACK. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different...” This time a year many people SPIT CHANGE. Unless we’re open to change, we’ll never experience anything new. The apostle Peter experienced this change firsthand and encouraged the early church to as well (1 Peter 1:3–4). Mahatma Gandhi wisely stated, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
CHANGE?
For nearly 5 years the current administration in Washington has promised change, yet has done nothing of any good. President Obama once declared, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Most Christians hope to change the world for God; we want to make a difference in this fallen world. But we can never be world changers unless we let Jesus change us. And that entails letting go of our plans, desires and dreams. Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
It’s integral to the Christian faith that we must change after we come to the cross—the “churchy” word is repentance. Author Timothy Keller says, "Repentance is not just the way into salvation, it is the way of salvation." We must change because we are broken, flawed, sinful people born into sin. In his book Who Do You Think You Are? Mark Driscoll writes, “We are brought back from spiritual death resulting from our sin to new life in Christ. Regeneration brings us new desires, thoughts, and hopes to do the things of God rather than the ‘Lusts of our flesh’ Ephesians 2:3).”
Our original sin nature and selfishness disqualifies us from everything that is truly good, every promise of God. Hence the need for grace and redemption—our rebel hearts and dreams are tainted by sin. How can we pursue the same things as the world and expect to change it? The world is all about chasing dreams, being famous and having the latest and greatest toys. We’re supposed to be different and set apart from a a world that doesn’t know God. Christian singer Rebecca St. James once wrote, “We must let our lives be more impacted by the ‘True Influencer’ than by those around us. Only then will we be influencers rather than the influenced.”
The apostle Paul explained to the church in Rome that everything in their lives had to change, even their minds needed to be BRAINWASHED of their way of thinking (Romans 12:2). Again, we typically want to trim off the bad parts of our lives that we don’t want; but deep down inside there are certain things we still want to hold on to, like a dream—when the cross demands all of us. Maybe it’s a family tradition, or perhaps that family name. This is why the prophet Moses explained the first step in marriage is leaving our parents before cleaving to a spouse and starting a new life together (Genesis 2:24), it’s a a whole new world living as one voice and ONE LOVE.
And this is the first hurdle many newlyweds face, one or the other refuses to let go of their single life and their old ways because THEY AIN’T READY for true commitment. Some are so blinded by their desires that their spouse’s are irrelevant. Somebody I used to know once told me, “Marriage is the perfect place to see how imperfect you are, change often brings LOVE AND PAIN. ” That’s something to think about before we say, “I do” and our lives change forever.
THE OLD?
Christian rapper Lacrae recently tweeted, “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.” Most of you who keep in touch with me know that I started working with a new instructor through the Christian Writers Guild back in November. I was so nervous about working with a professional writer for the first time. Over the Thanksgiving holidays I shared with my mentor about the changes occurring in my life and how my priorities were changing; none of it made any sense to me, I thought I was LOSIN’ IT. But I knew that I had to trust God. I knew there were some things I had to let go of.
Coming to Christ doesn’t mean that you PUT YOU ON again, it means putting on a new self (Colossians 3:5) and living life differently. Thus, I must WALK IT LIKE I’M CHANGED. This is why so many have a hard time keeping New Year’s resolutions, they have trouble fighting their old ways. This is our (the church) first fight, it’s the spiritual warfare the apostle Paul explained to the church at Ephesus (Ephesians 6:10–20). Imagine WARRING ANGELS battling for our souls in heavenly places. This is why we need God’s love and power to BREAK EVERY CHAIN, because our flesh doesn’t want to do what is good and it resists change. However, we serve a strong God and He will help us fight for change.
As I was growing up there was a saying in my family about this time of year, “Out with the old and in with the new.” Sometimes it meant cleaning house, sometimes it meant having a yard sale, while other times it meant my family being transferred to another Army base. To be honest it could be scary at times, change often is. Inspirational writer and speaker Eckhart Tolle states, “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
It was hard for the apostle Paul as Jesus changed him from being the old Saul. Paul was FORMERLY KNOWN as Saul, the greatest persecutor of the church. Saul was raised in the Jewish teachings; he was one of the brightest students taught by the most renowned teachers of his day.
Then God humbled him on a road to Damascus and the change was immediate, he was blind for three days until the scales fell from his eyes (Acts 9:9–18). Humility is an awesome agent of change. Andrew Murray explains in his book Humility:
“Until a humility which will rest in nothing less than THE END and death of self; which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which actually makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted—until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.”
It’s when we die to self that we COME ALIVE. Scripture is clear that we must change from our old ways (Job 11:13 –9, John 14:27–28, Ephesians 4:17–24). Scripture is also clear that we’ve always had a problem of letting go, I know it’s been THE HARDEST THING for me to let go of many of my own dreams, but they were just dreams— not love, not life. But I have no fear, just faith. Faith that God’s will, God’s plans are better than mine and that gives me peace (Jeremiah 29:11)—not a guarantee that God will bow down to me, but that I bow down to Him.
Although the Hebrew people wanted to be the people of God, they constantly found themselves being unfaithful and worshiping other gods in a LAND OF CONFUSION. I’ve always known about the Babylonian exile from 607-586 B.C., but what I didn’t realize was that the Hebrews were exiled four times to Babylon during this time. They obviously didn’t learn their lesson the first time and a new geration grew up ALONG THE WAY who refused to change also.
Three times they promised to change, they promised to love God, they promised to be faithful, in their hearts they wanted to repent—but their lives showed otherwise. Each time they failed, they believed they could GET IN to the Promise land and act like their old selves. But the good news is that God was faithful and He never gave up on them, He welcomed them back with OPEN ARMS. And that’s the good news for you and me. And this should comfort us, this should give us hope. God can change us, He is patient with us. He is our peace. God’s love is an UNSTOPPABLE LOVE and I know He will TAKE ME BACK when I make a mistake.
This is what Angel experienced in Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love, “Angel sat for a long time thinking after he left (Michael Hosea). The sun went down, and she didn’t need the lamp. She remembered sitting on the hill a mile from the farmhouse and Michael saying, “This is the life I want to give you.” And he had. How could he know what he had done for her? How could he even guess that her life was new because he had shown her the way to live?”
A real lady is open to change. She doesn’t make a SPECTACLE when she doesn’t get her way. A real lady is willing to LET IT GO, of everything—even when it gets scary. Because then God can create a new creation. It’s like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It’s some kind of beautiful when love changes people. No wonder the apostle Paul called marriage a mystery (Ephesians 5:31–33). Oh, where are you Christmas—when Jesus changed the world?
Notice how the apostle Paul goes back to the marriage analogy between Christ’s love for the church and a husband’s love for his wife. God has always been in the business of creating, He’s been creating since the beginning of time. As we Christians believe in THE STORY of creation. He planned out the ARCHITECTURE of THE UNIVERSE and formed all of the elements to bring everything together. So how can we tell God how to use us? How can we manipulate Him into doing our wills instead of His?
It’s because of our thirst for knowledge and power that sin entered the world shattering perfection like a wrecking ball, one day God will again RESTORE everything back with FIRE AND FURY to how He originally planned it and everything will be new again (Psalm 71:20)—THE BEST EVER when His kingdom comes. Randy Alcorn explains in his book Heaven, “See, I (Jesus) am making everything new’….What creative possibilities await us in the unfolding of the eternal ages no present imagination can begin to unravel.” It’s sort of like how we buy things at thrift shops that have already had one life, but to us it’s NEW.
