Friday, January 1, 2010

Keeping New Year Resolutions

During the 25 years I spent in the atheistic wilderness, I recall making resolutions every single year. They were resolutions common to many of us - more exercise, less drinking, no gambling, etc. They never lasted beyond the first week of the year, and other than establish that there were things in my life that needed fixing, the resolutions served no purpose whatsoever.

This experience is probably shared by many of you and the main reason it is so is because keeping our resolutions depends on our will power, which is very often weak. For the Christian, however, resolutions can be made and kept, because we don't depend on our strength, but on the strength of God. As Paul said, in a statement of seeming contradiction: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:19).

How so? Because as Christ told the apostle: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9). When we go to God, admitting to our inability to effect major changes in our lives and asking for his strength to do so, his power begins to move in us, making what seemed impossible possible. On another occasion, Jesus had said to his twelve apostles: "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God" (cf. Mark 10:27).

The context in this case was slightly different (he was speaking of salvation), but the lesson is the same. What was the context here? A young man once approached Jesus asking him what he needed to do to attain eternal life. Jesus told him he needed to keep the commandments. The young man told Jesus, with more than a hint of self righteousness, that he did this. "Well," Jesus said, "If you want to be perfect, sell everything you have and give it to the poor." The young man went away rather sad because he had enormous wealth that he couldn't bear to be parted from.

There are things that we can't bear to be parted from either, very often sinful things, and it requires tremendous grace from above to be able to do so. But before the grace can operate, there needs to be the desire to be parted from them. God can't/won't do anything until he sees the genuine desire in our hearts. But if we let him know the desire, take a step forward in faith by surrendering our weaknesses into his hands, we will see miraculous things happening. All those things that I tried to fix for twenty five years - the smoking, the drinking, the gambling - they all disappeared overnight. All we need to do is cooperate with him. We'll see how to do this tomorrow.

For those of you who may be curious what my own resolutions are for the year (and wanna see if the stuff I just spoke about grace and the power of God is on the level) here are a few of them: to return to a vegetarian diet (as Daniel of the Den of Lions fame knew, and Francis of Assisi as an example of somebody more modern, this is a great way of keeping both body and soul fit; explanation another time), committed prayer, regular Bible reading/meditation, disciplined spiritual reading and religious study, and frequent exercise.

I also intend updating this blog at frequent intervals (there are so many things I learn each day, but without a record of them, they slip into oblivion, lost forever), and writing a few more books . And, yeah, I plan on staying far away from sweets and chocolates. :)

I promise an honest report a month from now on how I fared, and answers to a few questions that may come up. A lot of folks say, "But it isn't a sin to eat meat; why do you want to give it up?" Or more commonly: "Jesus loved fish. If you wanna be like him you gotta eat fish!" If anybody is interested, I'll provide the reasons why I made this and the other resolutions.

Wish you all a blessed and Spirit filled 2010!

4 comments:

  1. Hi Aneel bro, I want to know why one of your resolution is to follow an vegetarian diet. I love animals, sometimes even more than people but still cannot turn into a vegetarian for that reason. I am curious to know your reasons.

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  2. I have quite a few reasons for turning vegetarian, but here is one I offer most often. When we want to build up our physical strength, we go to the gym or exercise in other ways, but when we want to build up our spiritual muscles, there is hardly anything that we do. Fasting from certain types of food is a way of doing this. Food is good—more than good, it is needed—for the body. If we can say no to food, which is good and needed, then it becomes a little easier to say no to the things that aren't good for us.

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  3. Your family agreed to serve you vegetarian diet only!! Great sacrifice brother Aneel!!!How many days? Is it for a year? I appreciate your resolutions. I am trying to think what can I do to receive grace from the Lord. If I try to do with 12 hours work per day X 5-6 days in a week with kids at home what is your suggestion for sacrifice?
    Love and peace of the Lord

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  4. No, it's for the rest of my life :) I had turned vegetarian after my conversion, but I took a break in 2009. Meat didn't seem to agree too well with my soul, so I decided to go vegetarian again.

    I don't do it to gain grace, which is a free gift from God, but as a way of mortification, of dying to myself. The body often makes great demands of us.

    You don't have to turn vegetarian, or give up anything to please God, who prefers obedience to sacrifice (cf. 1 Samuel 15:22) but if you really want to do this, then think of something you really enjoy (like chocolates? ) and quit that for a while and see how it goes.

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