2011 Resolutions

This is about the time of the year when people make new year's resolutions. I've already been convicted about which goals, disciplines, and resolves I am to prioritize for this coming year. These goals have been the same goals for a few years now. Ever since seminary, it seems my determination, commitment, focus, and consistency of these goals have dwindled. I pray that now more than ever, God would empower me with the strength of His Holy Spirit to continue to grow in these areas. I know when you make goals, it's best to be specific and have realistic time frames of measurement. I tend to be successful for a short while, then tend to give up completely on keeping them daily.


Many Christian leaders like to refer to the 1700's pastor, Jonathan Edwards. He was greatly known for keeping and holding himself to his 70 resolves. At a young age he was determined to live a life that glorified God. The amazing thing is that he continued to pursue and accomplish his resolves daily. He wasn't always successful, however, his devotion and faith in God proved to produce much growth in his life.

I desire the same for my life. I want to be committed to running the race. I want to be relentless in my pursuit for righteousness. I want to become obsessed with sanctification and growing in a godly character of integrity. When im not moving forward in life, taking a step closer to Him, i feel as if i am falling backwards. Being stagnate and idle in faith, paralyzes a believer and disconnects him or her from true fellowship with God and other believers. It's a constant battle to fight evil and temptations everyday. Im guessing that's why we need to equip ourselves with the armor of the God and remain in strong fellowship. We need to keep our eyes on Christ. We need to preach to ourselves the gospel daily. It is an absolute necessity. Most days we leave our houses in the morning without tuning our heart to His. We completely miss what God has planned for us. We have become so numb and ignorant of how God intends to work in our life. We completely miss opportunities to love, serve and encourage another. We are given countless scenarios of a choice to worship God, or to cave in to our sinful and selfish desires. But no matter how bad we do at our spiritual walk, God's grace is fresh every new day. The question is how will you live today? What is our heart set upon? Who will we live for?

Raw obedience doesn't last long because there is no spark behind it. No motivation, no inspiration, no passion or energy to accomplish God's will. The key is to find joyful obedience. We honestly don't find enough pleasure in spiritual disciplines. We have the opportunity to meet with Him at any second. God is never to busy for us. He gives us His entire attention. He never puts us on hold, and you never hafta travel anywhere or stand in a long line. God is available to us at any moment. The question is will we turn and go to Him? Will we sit at His feet as Mary did. Will we wait upon the Lord in silence and stillness. Will we call out to Him in prayer? Will we seek His truth in His Word? Will we meditate on His goodness and sing songs of praise? Will we find delight and pleasure in Him? Will we allow Him to satisfy the deepest thirst of our souls? Will we offer our lives as a living sacrifice and give ourselves to Him? Will we place our trust and faith in Him this day? Will we receive His powerful love? This is the beginning to joyful obedience. Without receiving from Him, we have no power to worship Him. A branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine.

This is what happens when i try to make a short blog, i get side tracked and go off topic. I wanted to talk about New Year's Resolutions and how we can increase our relationship with God. It takes a lot of soul care and digging into the roots of our sin. It takes faith and perseverance to live consistently with daily devotion. Honestly, the past few months of striving towards my goals have sucked. I havn't been achieving much progress in accomplishing my daily goals. But i am still learning not to condemn myself, but rather to meet God in my inadequacies and failures. I desire to do better and live brighter. I want to become the person God desires of me.

Anyways here's some of my 2011 resolutions

- Read daily devotions, (Bible and other Christian books)
- Become more bold in faith
- Become more gospel centered, and reminding myself the power of God's salvation
- Be able to extend myself more to the church and to meet with believers consistently
- pray more, pray with others, and pray for others,
- Take more walks with God
- start writing in my journal again
- focus on confession and repentance
- Focus being intentional with sharing the gospel, especially with certain individuals
- be able to find rest in God, especially when im stressed with school
- be able to communicate with God and others better
- be able to resist certain addictions and bad habits
- focus more on spiritual disciplines, and to find joy in them
- Be able to receive God's grace
- be more relational and others minded
- keep my eyes, mind, and heart pure
- take more initiative, especially when it comes to leading
- To be more thankful for the smallest of blessings
- to be wise with my time and resources, and manage myself better
- to spend more time in fellowship

- get a better sleep schedule, (its 5am now)
- eat healthier
- exercise more
- play more bball and swim more
- play guitar
- stop biting my nails
- watch less media
- save money
- get a job
- cook more
- be more productive and less lazy
- spend less time on the computer
- read more
- no procrastinating on homework, and to study more