It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so.
Changing the calendar to a new year is an opportunity for us to reflect upon our lives and consider areas where improvement is needed. The common encouragement of "new year, new you" makes for good social media content, but deep down, we know another trip around the sun doesn't really change anything. As a mentor of mine used to say, "Wherever you go, there you are." While this quip is meant to be funny, it's also quite provocative. Wherever you go in this new year, you and all your weaknesses will follow you. No amount of trips to the gym, healthy eating, sober months, or books read will actually change who you are at your core. New years and new habits do not fully free us from our old Adams and Eves. While earthly discipline is good, it does not bring the transformation we desperately need (1 Tim. 4:8).
One of the things that makes humans unique is our ability to discipline ourselves, develop new habits, and change the trajectory of our lives through learning, goal setting, and making better decisions. Who doesn't love a good comeback story? We all enjoy looking at before and after photos. We appreciate what weight loss, sobriety, and getting out of debt look like. And yet, we cannot see past those things to the heart that attempts to find something deeper through food, alcohol, and material possessions. As humans, we are all looking for the same ultimate thing, but we go about finding it in very different ways. We are all looking for redemption, and yet redemption continues to evade us when we look for it in anything we do ourselves. We all probably know someone who traded addiction to drugs and alcohol for workaholism, pleasure-seeking, and other habits that fed their need to find meaning, purpose, and identity.
Your old Adam still resides in your heart, and he will continue to seek love, acceptance, and worth in all the wrong places, places that will always leave you looking for more.
Setting and achieving good and measurable goals in 2025 may be the thing you need to save your marriage, resurrect your career, salvage broken relationships, or even save your life. In no way am I suggesting that you shouldn't desire change or that you should settle for the life that your poor decisions have created. Join that gym, begin eating healthier, read through the entire Bible this year, start contributing to that IRA or 401K, and get the help you need if addiction is destroying your life. Make 2025 the year you quit procrastinating and start making those changes you have always wanted to make. However, know this: you are the same you, a sinner who, even on your best day, is desperately flawed. No amount of successful resolutions can change that reality. This new year does not bring a new you. Your old Adam still resides in your heart, and he will continue to seek love, acceptance, and worth in all the wrong places, places that will always leave you looking for more. We know this when it manifests itself through destructive behaviors.
We don't easily recognize that the same proclivities exist in us any time we attempt to find life in ourselves instead of through Christ who provides for us outside of ourselves. We can easily confuse our horizontal achievements for more love and acceptance from God. If I do this or stop doing that, then God will be pleased with me. However, the truth is that Christ knows you perfectly, and he accepts you unconditionally. There is nothing you can do to make him love you more than he already does, and there is nothing you can do to make him love you any less. The beauty of the gospel is that, in Christ, you already have what you thought was only possible if you became someone completely different. Christ doesn't need a different you. He knows you and accepts you just as you are. He is fully aware of all your skeletons and secrets. Nothing is lost on him, and yet instead of running away from you, he runs toward you, with arms wide open. This kind of grace, when understood fully, does not create laziness or licentiousness. You will continue to examine your life, want more for yourself, and make the necessary changes to achieve what you desire. When you fail, however, you must be reminded that your endeavors were not meant to fulfill or even change you. Only Christ can do that.
The truth is that Christ knows you perfectly, and he accepts you unconditionally.
While the law is good at showing you those areas that need attention, it can do nothing to transform your heart. At our core, we are broken, and no amount of self-control or effort to change will fix that. We are so good at deceiving ourselves into believing we can, with enough resolve, transform ourselves into something new and better. Yet, this will only lead us away from Christ and his promises and toward either despair or self-righteousness. Despair comes when you figure out you haven't actually transformed into anything other than who you were initially, while self-righteousness follows the false belief that you're pulling this off.
Neither of these outcomes is what Christ wants for you.
The law, when understood with all of its weightiness, leads us past the surface-level behaviors that most of our resolutions attempt to change. It gets to the heart, your heart. Which, as the prophet Jeremiah said, is "desperately sick," so who can "understand it?" (Jer. 17:9) When this reality strikes us and the law has done its good and intended work, we will rightfully surrender and all of our hard work will be put to death so that Christ can do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
As Paul declares when talking about his own struggles with himself and his inability to making a lasting change:
"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24-25)
As you make those resolutions and set goals for yourself in 2025, remember that true transformation is something only God can do by giving you new life in Christ. A life that you cannot earn but can only come to you as a free gift. This life is the very life of Christ, a new identity that necessitates a loss of your own identity. An identity that we try very hard to retain but that must daily be put to death (Rom. 6:11). This death is not only for those obviously sinful actions but also for the efforts that are often celebrated and yet can be just as destructive when taken out of the realm of the earthly and placed where only Christ can dwell.
It's a new year, and you are still the same you: a sinner who is simultaneously perfect in every way because Christ declares it to be so. Take this truth with you into this new year, and let it motivate you toward love and good works. You are free, free to be what God has intended for you; "only do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh" (Gal. 5:13).
