RePost: The Christian New Year
What will your New Year’s resolution be for 2024? It’s a question probably equal parts hated and anticipated. Some people look forward to this season every year as an opportunity to reflect and reset. Others feel guilt from the hauntings of failed resolutions past and would rather glide into the new year without disruption to the status quo. But how should the disciple of Christ treat this season?
Firstly, we must recognize that there is no distinctly Christian response to New Year’s. The Bible doesn’t explicitly address this occasion or the practice of making resolutions. So, whether you love this season or dread it, relax. With that said, however, I believe the season can afford the Christian with an unmatched opportunity for reflection.
Fundamental to the Christian outlook is the belief that our identity no longer rests on our own performance. To trust Christ is to finally give up on the futile pursuit of making ourselves. We are now “in Christ.” He is our “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). So then, while it’s true that resting here is a constant struggle, this life-altering truth must be our starting point when reflecting on life change and resolutions. Nothing I do or perform can move the needle because Christ has already taken me past the finish line. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
If my life, this very moment, is hidden with Christ who is seated right now at the right hand of God, then I can close the book on the mindset that Tara Isabella Burton describes as driving the outlook of our modern age. She writes that modern people live under the assumption “that who we are—deep down, at our most fundamental level—is who we most want to be. Our desires, our longings, our yearning to become or to acquire or to be seen a certain way, these are the truest and most honest parts of ourselves.” For the Christian, “the truest and most honest parts of ourselves” is who we see when we look at Christ.
We no longer, therefore, live “into” an identity where we’re trying to make ourselves. Instead, Christ has made it possible to live “out of” an identity where his righteousness has already been imputed to us. The Christian call, in other words, has nothing to do with achievement of something not yet gained and everything to do with living based on who we already are in Christ. Why do we “put to death what is earthly” in us and “put on . . . compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:5, 12)? Because we have died, and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. We resolve to live according to who we are in Christ. A Christian resolution must begin in Christ.
With that said, our journey in Christ celebrates new beginnings, and the new year provides a wonderful opportunity to reevaluate and form new habits that help us connect our lives with who we are in Christ. After all, to be “baptized into Christ Jesus” means that we have both died and been raised in him. We have died to the power of sin and have been raised so that “we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1-4). The Christian, therefore, has unique access to the Holy Spirit’s power. The same power that raised Christ from the dead now works in us to raise us daily from the soul deadening way of life we formerly pursued. Christ has made it possible for us to live no longer enslaved to sin but instead enslaved to righteousness.
I’ll close with some reflection questions to help you maximize this season with Christ at the center.
The first set has to do with rooting my life in Christ: In 2023, have I lived with awareness of who I am in Christ? Or have I fallen into the trap of trying to prove myself to God or to myself or to the world? How would my life look differently if I was more deeply rooted in my identity in Christ? What new habits will help me live daily with this awareness? How can the church help me live with this awareness?
The second set has to do with living out of my identity in Christ: In 2023 what habits have I formed that prevent me from living out of who I am in Christ? How have I allowed sin to reign, leading me to obey its passions (Romans 6:12) and taking me backwards to who I used to be? What earthly practices do I need to put to death (Colossians 3:5)? What Christlike characteristics do I need to put on (Colossians 3:12)? What new habits will help me walk in newness of life? How can the church help me live in Christ?
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