Why Resolutions Don’t Work

This time of year you always see a flurry of posts, articles, and columns on resolutions. I think I have seen at least half a dozen things on Jonathan Edwards’ own resolutions. He wrote 70 of them while he was in his early twenties. They are quite ambitious. Maybe I will post a few of them as my next “Tuesdays with Edwards” post…

I have been learning that while resolutions are made with the best intentions and are meant to motivate us to become stronger, thinner, healthier, wiser, or some other brand of “better,” resolutions almost always fail to do so. Why is that?

You could blame it on lack of conviction, commitment, on failure to calculate the cost, or some other “c” word. But I think the real culprit is the fact that “law” is a horrible motivator. Inevitably you find that you can’t keep it. Be it ever so simple, that resolution will never be perfectly kept. The more you transgress your resolution the less power to motivate you positively it has, until it is just another resolution you will try again next year.

It doesn’t matter if it is the Ten Commandments, speed limits, or New Year’s resolutions. When it comes to law, we are law breakers. Law shows us what we should be, how we should act, how we should live. But the law, be it divine or human in origin, has no ability to help us keep it.

There are only threes resolution that have really ever stood and has any positive effect:

The Father’s resolution to save us.
Jesus’ resolution to pay the price to make that possible.
The Holy Spirit’s resolution to apply it to us by uniting us to Jesus.

Of course, you could say that this is really one resolution. I won’t argue with that. As long as you know that those resolutions have never been transgressed. And that is a very good thing. Because while we try over and over and over to make ourselves stronger, thinner, healthier, wiser, or some other brand of “better,” because of God’s resolutions, you will never be more loved, more right, and more perfect in God’s eyes than you are right now. It is all grace. You can’t earn it. You can’t increase it. You can’t make it better. You can’t lose it. You can’t disqualify yourself from it.

So as I start 2015, instead of making another resolution I will break, I am thankful for God’s resolution, for I live in the light of the grace of it.