What Not to Expect from New Years Resolutions
As we begin 2023, enjoy this blog from The Gospel Coalition which reminds us of how we can set goals with a biblical focus, without falling for the lies which New Years Resolutions so often tell…
As we begin 2023, many of us will be thinking about our New Years Resolutions, below we have featured a blog by Brianna Lambert, first published on thegospelcoalition.org, which seeks to remind us of the pitfalls that we can fall into when setting them, and how we can focus on God and on biblical truth as we set our goals for this year. Enjoy!
With New Year’s resolutions in full force, you may have noticed an uptick of before-and-after pictures flooding your newsfeeds. These dramatic transformations encompass everything from weight loss to home makeovers, the pictures broadcasting all we can attain: smaller bodies; higher energy; bigger muscles; more beauty, organization, or peace.
While nothing is wrong with celebrating progress, these juxtaposed images can influence us in subtle ways. A steady diet of before-and-after pictures can slowly skew our expectations and perspective on reality. They whisper lies that can trickle down even into our spiritual lives.
Here are four lies to watch out for as we scroll.
Lie #1: We should expect and prize dramatic results.
Before-and-after images thrive on shock and awe, whether it’s body changes or a refurbished desk. Yet dramatic change doesn’t represent the majority of day-to-day life. Most of the change in our lives comes slowly, and this is especially true for our spiritual lives. God routinely compares our growth in him to the practice of farming—a slow and patient toil. He beckons us to wait on him and not grow weary while waiting for the harvest (Gal. 6:9; Ps. 27:14). This hardly sounds like a life of dramatic reveals.
Yet it’s easy to assume our battles with sin should be won quickly. We hope the Bible verse we read on Monday will cure our anger by Wednesday, but the Spirit works differently. He slowly changes us from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). Prioritizing shocking changes steals our opportunities to see the active grace of the Lord in our lives and may cause us to minimize the importance of small steps of growth.
Lie #2: We are the main force of change.
Images are influential. We glance at the before-and-after pictures and the lesson is clear: my effort will bring me from picture A to picture B. But this bootstrap mentality falls short when we carry it into our Christian lives. While the culture around us prizes personal action, God reminds us he is the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). We excel in good works because “God is able to make all grace abound” to his children (2 Cor. 9:8). We’re only able to work out our salvation because the Lord is working in our hearts to will and to work (Phil. 2:12–13).
We may rightly create goals, reading plans, and mission statements for the year, but we must remember that when December comes, every single bit of growth was accomplished through the power of the Spirit who enables us.
Lie #3: Easy formulas provide results.
As each makeover passes our eyes, we’re tempted to believe the same process will work for us. We print out the cleaning routine, add organizational products to our shopping cart, and wait for the promised idyllic home. Yet the images don’t tell the whole story. Did the redecorated room alone truly bring organization, or was it accompanied by decluttering and an overhaul in habits and mindset?
Unfortunately, we often sidestep the details in favor of tidy formulas in our Christian lives. But God isn’t a guru offering three-step guides to health and happiness. The wisdom literature of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes routinely demonstrates that life doesn’t always work out in tidy ways. Sickness may continue even as we seek after the Lord; children we’ve brought up in the faith may turn away. The righteous often face hardship, while the wicked seem to flourish (Eccl. 7:15).
The unpredictability of life forces us to ditch the formulas and cling closer to our Lord. It pushes us to stop viewing our Bibles as a handbook and instead as the means to know our covenant-keeping Father, who loves and shepherds his people through each mountaintop and valley. Jesus is so much better than any formula. He knows the truths and help we need today might be different than the saint sitting next to us in the pew. God doesn’t deal in rigid formulas—he actively guides us by his Spirit each and every day.
Lie #4: Our ‘after’ will look better.
Perhaps the greatest lie before-and-after pictures preach is that our “after” should always look better. Tighter muscles, fewer wrinkles, and growing beauty represent progress in our culture. Yet Christians follow a Savior who walked toward suffering rather than beautification. Christ emptied himself to the point of death (Phil. 2:7–10).
We follow in the same manner. As we pour out our lives serving our children, friends, church, and community, our bodies will be broken. Our frames will grow weaker from the weight of burdens shared with other saints. The wrinkles on our faces will tell the story of toil, tears, and even joy in a lifetime of following Christ. Though God inwardly renews us as we grow in him, our outer body will continue to waste away as it makes its journey back to dust (2 Cor. 4:16). Caring for our bodies is good, but we must remember that ultimately our “after” picture is one that displays a life poured out for another (2 Tim. 4:6).
As we swipe through our news feeds this year and absorb each shocking reveal, may we do so discerningly. The Christian’s before-and-after picture may not go viral on social media, but it’s the picture that most closely resembles our Savior.
Brianna Lambert lives in Indiana with her husband and three kids where they attend Crosspointe Community Church. She is a staff writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has contributed to various online publications such as Christianity Today and Risen Motherhood. You can read more of her writing at lookingtotheharvest.com or follow her at Instagram or Facebook.
#RedeemerRecommends - The Lies That Serve Us
#RedeemerRecommends The Lies that Serve Us - A brilliant and challenging talk by Justin Giboney
This week on #RedeemerRecommends we are highlighting the first talk in a new video series by The Gospel Coalition - TGC Talks.
In this talk, entitled ‘The Lies That Serve Us: Christians and Critical Race Theory’, Justin Giboney challenges all of us that would call ourselves Christians, to identify and call out the self-serving lies which we tell ourselves about key issues.
“We must not only confront the lies that offend us, but also the lies that serve us.”
You can watch the short talk in full below, or follow the links to find out more about Justin Giboney and the AND Campaign.
Find a full transcript of the video HERE
#RedeemerRecommends - Evangelism in the Arts
In this week’s #RedeemerRecommends we highlight a topic which is close to the hearts of many in our Redeemer Family.
Right now, the arts are going through the toughest time in living memory, and we know that within our Redeemer family, there are performers, teachers, choreographers and many more individuals who are involved in the arts. We also are a church full of people who love and appreciate the arts and the impact they have on the borough of Ealing, the city of London, and the rest of the world!
We also believe that the incredible artistic gifting within our church is not just a coincidence, and that God can and will use it to impact those around us in Ealing. In fact we don’t just believe it in principle but we have also seen it in practice with the release of a book - Faith Locked Down, which was published this summer and includes some examples of the incredible creativity that is present within the Redeemer family!
That leads us to today’s #RedeemerRecommends. Last year, at the Gospel Coalition conference in the US, one of the breakout sessions focused on Evangelism in the Arts. Todd Goranson, founder of Trifonia Winds and the Junction Saxophone Quartet, and Steve Rooks, chair of dance and resident choreographer at Vasser College, New York, led the discussion, which focused on how we can affect our communities with the gospel through the arts. They also talk about how artistic excellence leads to effective engagement, and highlight influential organisations such as the Christian Performing Arts Fellowship and Creative Arts Europe.
It is a fascinating and inspiring listen, and will bless both artists and lovers of art alike, as we realise the power that the arts hold when it comes to evangelism and local or global mission.
The recording of the session, which includes a Q&A section at the end, is available below.
#RedeemerRecommends - Confronting Christianity
#RedeemerRecommends a book which uses big questions of Christianity as signposts pointing to the hope of the world, Jesus Christ.
Every year in the run up to Christmas I have the same conversation with frustrated members of my family as they desperately ask me what I want! As gifts is not high on my list of love languages I often respond with a shrug and an unhelpful phrase, something along the lines of - ’Whatever you feel like getting me I guess?’
I have come to learn over the years that when someone is trying to be generous, it helps to be a little more specific than that! So this year I sent my family the link to the Gospel Coalition’s books of the year, as a sort of Christmas list! You can find it here, just in case you’ve got a friend or family member with a January birthday coming up and (like me) your gift giving ideas ran dry about half way through December….
One of the books on the list which I was lucky enough to receive this Christmas was Rebecca McLaughlin’s ‘Confronting Christianity - 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Hardest Religion’.
The book poses 12 common objections to the Christian faith, and flips those challenges on their heads, using them to point to the goodness of God.
McLaughlin is fantastic at confronting the general lack of biblical knowledge which seems to influence many people’s objections to the Christian faith, and focusing on the biblical truth which can provide clear answers to questions like ‘Doesn’t Christianity Crush Diversity?’ And ‘Isn’t Christianity Homophobic?’. She has also clearly done her research (as is to be expected with a book like this), and not only does she highlight biblical truth, but also aligns it with findings of modern science to construct arguments which provide answers to those with big questions for Christianity, regardless of their knowledge of the bible.
I have no doubt that this is a book which would appeal to those who would not call themselves Christian, but simply have some questions to ask. It will also provide a great foundation for those Christians who have friends who are asking questions, and would love some guidance as to how to answer them!
There are countless books out there which pose the ‘Big Questions’ of the world and aim to answer them, but what this book does so well is that combination of evidence alongside the biblical narrative. In every answer to every question this book is pointing unequivocally to the only source of true hope, the incredible, fully God, fully man, Jesus Christ. I will end this #RedeemerRecommends with a paragraph from the last page of the book, as McLaughlin brings us to the reason why all these questions need an answer, and why the story of the bible is the best place to turn.
In Jesus’s world, we find connective tissue between the truths of science and morality. We find a basis for saying that all human beings are created equal, and a deep call to love across diversity. We find a name for evil, and a means of forgiveness. We find a vision of love that is so much deeper than our current hearts can hold, and a true intimacy better than our weak bodies could ever experience. We find a diagnosis of human nature as shot through with sin and yet as redeemable by grace. We find a call to care for the poor, oppressed, and lonely, a call springing from the heart of God himself and grounded in the hope that one day every tear will be wiped away, every stomach will be filled, and every outcast will be embraced. But we do not find glib answers or an easy road. Instead, we find a call to come and die. (page 222)
#RedeemerRecommends - How Pornography Makes Us Less Human and Less Humane - a blog by Matthew Lee Anderson
This week #RedeemerRecommends an excellent and challenging blog which highlights a key issue in today’s society.
Many of us as Christians will be aware of the damaging effect that pornography can have, whether that be on our own lives, on the lives of those close to us, or simply on the society in which we live.
Matthew Lee Anderson’s fantastic blog is the subject of this week’s #RedeemerRecommends, it challenges and stirs the soul, and inspires a desire for purity.
Pornography deceives. Its sexualized depiction of human persons promises the viewer what it cannot deliver. But how pornography lies is difficult to see, if only because our eyes have gone blind from our frequent exposure to the medium. Pervasive consumption of pornography dulls the mind: if we delightedly give ourselves over to falsehoods, we lose our ability to sort truth from fiction. Sin has a compounding effect. The twin wraiths of confusion and ignorance preserve the charm of its false pleasures. It is easier for those drowning in a whirlpool of deceits to embrace their situation as “normal” than it is to escape.
The inescapable availability of pornography, and the corrosive “pornification” of all other forms of media, means that the most pressing challenge for Christians is rediscovering what purity feels like. C. S. Lewis famously proposed that spiritual mediocrity is the equivalent of playing with mud pies instead of taking the seaside holiday God offers us. Our situation is more dire, though: we are in danger of forgetting what the sea even offers. The warmth of sunshine that lifts our eyes and our hearts to heaven has been hidden by the stale pollution of our passions. Pornography is the only atmosphere we know: it has clotted our lungs, and we cannot get enough of it.
You can read the rest of the blog HERE.