The New Birth is More Powerful than New Year’s Resolutions

© 2017 by Tom Boynton (editing by Kathy Boynton)

As the new year approaches, many will make new year’s resolutions.  Unfortunately, resolutions don’t change a person’s heart.  Usually, they are soon forgotten and life goes on as usual.

Many who celebrate Christ’s birth will be urged to pray what has become known as “the sinner’s prayer.”  However, for some, this can be just like a new year’s resolution.  Nothing changes.  Life continues as usual.  The new professing “believer” continues a sinful life style.  There’s been no change of heart nor remorse over sin.  How should we interpret such a situation?  Scripture tells us.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Notice the cause/effect relationship.  A person is not “in Christ” because of changing his or her lifestyle.  Our own works can’t earn salvation.  Rather, the Holy Spirit of Christ within a Christian produces a changed lifestyle.  If no change is evident, Scripture cautions us to discover our true condition by self-examination.

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

Some evangelists discourage new converts from such self-examination.  Instead, they instruct them to mark the dates of their professions in their Bibles.  Then, if they later doubt the reality of their salvation, each is to look at that date for assurance.  It becomes a spiritual pain pill which covers up a dark reality.  Scripture makes no provision for pain pills to comfort an unsaved heart.

The true salvation of a person is a mysterious yet wonderful reality.  Its source is God, not man.  Jesus said,

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.  The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:6‑8)

God’s Holy Spirit uses His Word to produce true faith in Christ’s sacrificial work (see Romans 10:17).

Has God changed you, or are you trusting a powerless resolution which can’t change your heart?

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