“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), “those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). These are promises that are found in the bible and they are true because “God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent” (Numbers 23:19). Not only are these promises true, they are also relevant especially as we step into a new year. This is the time where many of us make resolutions and decide to change our lives for the better and so it is also an appropriate time for us to return to our first love. As we step into this new year, I thought it best to remind us that we serve a God who is not subjected to time and in whom there is no variation (James 1:17b). He does not change, so are His promises. This means, He can be trusted this year too. I don’t know what your goals are for this year but let me remind you that God is still God and He is still calling you to Himself, He still desires a deeper relationship with you and He still wants to grow you into a better version of yourself, a more sanctified version of you. In order to do that, He still requires your surrender and your obedience. So today, as you make your resolutions, let me suggest two additional ones that will help you draw closer to God’s heart.
The first resolution that helps you draw closer to God’s heart is to live a life of total surrender. In Isaiah 43, God says to the nation of Israel that He is doing a “new thing” and He tells her to forget about the former things. In order to live a life of total surrender, you ought to forget about your former days, whether they be days of glory or of doom; you ought to forget about yourself including your mistakes. You see, because Christ’s sacrifice on the cross gives us the forgiveness we need when we sin, we have to receive this forgiveness and move on from the condemnation rather than dwelling on our past failures. Once Christ has forgiven us, the Father has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west and “therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Psalm 103:12, Romans 8:1). He does not call it to memory anymore so we too must forget it. Anything that tries to keep us in a state of self-pity, downcast and the likes must be thrown away. Like David, once we have asked the Lord to have mercy on us, we must believe and receive His mercy and go from there sinning no more. A life of total surrender is a life that is not self-satisfying rather seeks to do what pleases the Father. Moreover, a life of total surrender is one in which the one surrendering has accepted their condition and knows that they are better off surrendering to the higher power (God). Just like it is in a war, the nation that is weak and about to be defeated raises the white flag to say that they surrender. Such surrendering happens only after that nation has evaluated its state and has come to the conclusion that they are unable to be victorious. In our case, we ought to know our sinful propensity and our inability to produce anything good in and of ourselves only then are we able to truly surrender. When we have difficulties surrendering, it means deep down we still believe we are able to fix the situation, we still believe we are in control or powerful, we still believe we are capable. In this new year, let us start by coming to God like a child who looks to his father for everything.
The second resolution that helps you draw closer to God’s heart is to grow your affection for Christ. I must say, this sounds too cliché and a bit weird. For how do you grow your affection for a person you do not see? The same way you grow affection for a person you do see. I used to wonder whether it was possible at all to grow affection for someone and I was shocked at the answer. Yes, it is possible, even for a person you dislike. Think about it, advertising firms have been very effective in “growing our affections” for products we did not care for to the point of making us buy them, the parallel is also true with human relations. The idea is simple, the more you surround yourself with something, talking about it, learning about it, dreaming about it, etc., the more your affections for that thing grows. Therefore, the way to grow your affection for Christ is to be engrossed with all that Christ is about starting with your love for the Word of God. After all, Christ is the Word and the Word was there in the beginning (John 1:1). This means, you ought to start from the beginning which is by immersing yourself with God’s word. I know, you might be thinking, how else to immerse yourself in the word especially if you have a daily bible reading habit. I would like to suggest three other ways: 1) listening to the word, 2) speaking the word and 3) memorizing the word. I will not focus on reading the word as a habit to help you grow your affection for Christ because it is a given and if this is something you struggle with, I will simply ask you to just begin and be disciplined. Nothing comes easy in life, you are already disciplined in many other areas in your life, there is no excuse if you are a follower of Christ to not be disciplined in this habit. So forgive me for not cutting you any slack, but we need to be Christians that eat meat and not drink milk all the time. In terms of listening to the word, this habit is easy and does not require you to do much but just to be attentive. The more you listen to something, the more your understanding and belief of it grows. With the advancement of technology, many of the bible apps that are available have an audio version where you can play it. You can choose to play the bible at certain times throughout your day, for those that work around the home, you can always have it in the background. Your mind is a powerful tool and somehow it retains what it hears even at lower frequencies. When it comes to speaking the word, it is as simple as reading it out loud , saying it to yourself or praying it. Christians are called to declare the truth of the word in their lives and to live by it. It is even more important to do so now considering the times and seasons we are in where everything in our society is screaming words contrary to the truth of God. What is even striking is that non-believers have been bolder in declaring some of these truths while we Christians have been in the background. This has to stop. How do you speak the word of God or declare it? By saying out loud what the bible says, by living it out and by refusing to live a lie. Say like David “why are you downcast O my soul, hope in God and I shall again praise Him” (Psalm 42:5) when life does not go according to plan. This is how you speak the word of God to your life and in your life. Of course, you can simply pick up your bible and read the word out loud, that counts too but the goal is that what you read out loud will become an integral part of you and flow into your life. Finally, the last habit you can incorporate to grow your affection for Christ is bible memorization. This final habit to me is a combination of the first two because as you memorize scripture you are reading it, declaring it and listening to yourself as you say the words. Memorization is not as practiced in our society as it used to. When I was younger, in primary school, this habit was ingrained in us. We had to memorize multiplication tables, and other lessons taught in class. That helped us succeed and many of the theorems that were memorized are still easily accessible from the back of our minds like “back pocket” information. In the same way, when you memorize scripture, you are storing the word of God in you for the days ahead. This is a valuable tool yet a difficult one because it demands our undivided attention and time. I believe anyone can memorize and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I was encouraged a few years ago at my church when an elderly couple did a presentation of one of the books of the New Testament. I can’t recall what book it was but I know it was one of Paul’s letters to the churches. During that presentation, the entire book had been memorized by them and it was amazing to see that in display. That had inspired me to go back to this habit. I admit, I was not as successful as that couple because I was not disciplined enough but I want to go harder at it this year. I personally think there is more gain in memorizing a book or a chapter rather than a verse. But whatever you decide to do, whether a verse, a chapter or an entire book, stick to it and you will see how you grow. After all, it is not about quantity but quality.
With all that has been said, I would like to bring a balance and remind you that it is not your effort that make you grow your affection for Christ. Remember, your heart must be humbled, God’s spirit is the one enabling you to do all these habits so you cannot boast about your accomplishments. If there is anything to boast in, boast in God, in the fact that you are known by Him. Moreover, these habits must help you grow in love for Christ which means the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) must be more evident in you and not the contrary. So, if you’re looking down on others who have not done any of those habits, I am afraid you are not growing in your affections for Christ but rather for yourself. May God grant us the grace to stick to the resolutions that help us get closer to Him this year. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 