New Year, New You?
What if this is the year that you quit striving to become a new you and instead learned to rest in the fact that God has already made you into a new you?
This is true. The Bible teaches us this truth, yet every year as we approach New Year’s Day, something in most of us is imploring us to strive to be better.
We feel the urge to live our best life, to become a better version of ourselves, or to become who we were meant to be. Our flesh loves this kind of stuff. We crave the satisfaction of achieving, doing, performing, and ultimately finding fulfillment through these things.
It’s been true in my life over the years. I used to write out New Year’s resolutions every year. I had resolutions for achieving more in my career, being a better husband, becoming a better dad, getting in shape, and performing at a higher level in my hobbies. I made resolutions to be a better Christian. I was going to read my Bible more, pray more, give more, serve more, and to sin less.
And I loved it. Being a Type A personality, I like to-do lists. I enjoy working hard. I long to feel like I am making improvements.
But when is it ever enough? When do we ever get there? When does the ultimate fulfillment finally arrive?
It doesn’t. Every time we feel like we get somewhere further down the road, we just see that the road keeps on going and going.
We try to convince ourselves that we are living our best life in pursuit of more. We justify ourselves by comparing ourselves to others who are doing less. We hope deep down it means something that we are doing all this stuff to improve. We pray God sees we are trying and will bless our efforts in some way.
But is this the Christian life? Is the Christian life, “strive,” “do better,” “be more,” “sin less?”
NO! That is religion.
Christianity is “Christ has done,” “it is finished.” We receive what is His by merit but ours through grace. This is the gospel. This is the good news of Jesus Christ and the message of Scripture.
We were never going to be able to live up to God’s standard of holiness, righteousness, and perfection. In Romans 3, after pointing out that all are under the power of sin, that no one is righteous, the apostle Paul says that no one will get where they need to be through striving…
“No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”
Romans 3:20
This is the entire reason that Jesus had to come. We were never going to be able to strive enough to fulfill the law, to get where we needed to be. So Jesus came and fulfilled the law for us and gave Himself up as the sacrifice and payment for our sins.
He did all the work. The only thing left for us to do is to receive what He has accomplished for us. And when we receive His gift of salvation through faith, not only are we forgiven, but we are made new through our union with Him.
“In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3)
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Jesus came to crucify our old self and to make us new in Him, and He does that the moment we accept Him as our Savior.
You already are a new you. You don’t have to try and make yourself into a better you this year. In Christ, you are righteous. In Christ, you are holy.
In Christ, you are not lacking anything. You don’t need to do more and sin less to become a better Christian. In Christ, you are complete. (Colossians 2:10)
Here’s the way David Needham puts it in his book, Birthright:
“At the moment (you put your faith in Jesus for salvation) a new person came into being who had never existed before. You are not a repaint job, but a brand new creature. The old you was crucified on the cross with Christ. The new you was born of the Holy Spirit and has been raised with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenlies. You were dead spiritually; now you are alive spiritually. For the first time you are alive the way God meant you to be alive.”
David Needham (Birthright)
So instead of resolving to become a better version of yourself in this new year, maybe this is the year that you resolve to rest in who Christ has already made you into and learn to live out who you already are in Him.
The more you learn about who Christ has already made you into, the more you’ll begin to live out who you already are.
You won’t always feel like a new you. You won’t always act like the new you. But God says He has made you new. Are you going to trust your feelings or what you see in your behavior? Or are you going to trust what God says is true about you?
What God says about you is the truest thing about you. You are new. May you walk in the newness of life that you already have and experience Christ in you and through you this year.