New Year-New You?

Submitted by Chris Shimmel, Grace Church

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions to change and improve your life in 2017?
Perhaps you have – and are determined that, this year, they will really stick! Or maybe you have already broken the promises you made to yourself just a short time ago. Alternatively, perhaps you regard the whole idea somewhat cynically.
One thing is for sure: we change every day whether we like it or not. Whether it is simply due to the daily process of aging or the impact of different circumstances, change goes on around us and within us, however much or little we recognize it.
To some, it comes as a surprise to discover what a true Christian view of personal change is all about. Many secular frameworks for self-improvement – and indeed those of most other world religions – all boil down to one simple thing: try harder!
But for Christians, change doesn’t start with trying – it begins with grace. Grace is God’s unearned love and kindness, as made known to us in Jesus Christ. Grace is shown supremely in Jesus’ death – an act of love which makes possible forgiveness for the past, purpose for the present, and hope for the future.
It’s no wonder, then, that a Christian view of change must include this startling statement: “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. Behold – the old has passed away; the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are made completely new. This isn’t just changing the old person, it is completely creating a new us. We have a new status – as children of God. We have a new identity – not primarily as male or female, black or white, or middle or working class – but as people who above all are “in Christ”. And we have a new set of relationships as we connect with God and His people. All these changes are possible because of grace – what God has done for us, rather than anything we do for Him.
But just as any parent who loves their child wants them to fulfill their potential, so God wants us to grow and develop too. His concern is not first and foremost to make us happy – but to make us holy. And holiness is not crusty religiosity, but a robust, white-hot joyful goodness – in other words, “Christ-likeness”.
In seeking to change, we continue to rely on grace, for it is “the grace of God [which] teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives,” as Titus 2:11-13 puts it. Such grace-fuelled change is always centered on a person, Jesus, rather than a program – and on trusting Him, rather than trying in our own strength.
Trying to change yourself is a futile experiment. Real change is made when the Creator of the world transforms you from a child of darkness into a child of light. This isn’t done through being good person, donating money to a worthy cause, going to church, being baptized or any other “thing” you would like to think of. This only comes by surrendering your life to Jesus Christ. As Ephesians 2:8-9 says ” For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast”. You are not changed but what you can do, but by what Jesus has done. Receive it freely and walk in the knowledge that you can be a child of the King.