Resolutions
A favorite tradition of our culture is to welcome the New Year with the formation of the so-called “New Year’s Resolution.” A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something. When the New Year comes, many of us write down what we decide we will do or not do in the coming year as a part of our hope for personal development or improvement. It is an honorable tradition for sure. Many of us would like to see ourselves exercise a little more, snack a little less, make more room for intentional family time, or even do less scrolling on our cell phones. The list of possibilities for a resolution is endless and also highly personal.
While it is a good thing to challenge ourselves to “do better,” what I would challenge all of us to do this New Year is to accept the blessing of restoration in Christ above the list of resolutions for ourselves in 2025. On the first Sunday of January, at The Church at Severn Run, Next Gen Pastor Matt Gardner delivered a stirring message guiding us into a time of reflection on what Jesus calls us to in accepting Him as Savior. We are called to walking into the truth of who He is and what abiding in Him can restore us to: living in the presence of God as we walk through life dwelling with Jesus.
Pastor Matt took us into the Gospel of John chapter 5, the story of Jesus’ visit to the pool at Bethesda where He healed a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. John does not tell us how long the man had been there, but what we do know is that he and the others waiting at the pool – the blind, lame, paralyzed – were there hoping for a miracle of healing. When he encounters Jesus, Jesus extends to him an invitation: “Do you want to get well?” (John 5: 6). Jesus’ invitation to the paralyzed man, in all of his years of suffering, was more than an invitation to be healed physically. It was an invitation to see and walk by the light of faith in Jesus, God among us. One man, with ears to hear and eyes to see, accepted that invitation and got up, walking into new life.
The invitation into healing and new life in Christ is the same invitation that Jesus offers each one of us today! The people came to the pool of Bethesda hoping for a miracle. The miracle that came in Jesus did not only come to the healed man – the miracle has come to heal us too. Jesus, the Son of God, came to dwell among us and heal our souls. He has restored us to the Father through the gift of grace on the cross, taking our sin that separates us from God on Himself allowing us to walk in the Spirit with Him as our guide as we seek to abide in Him.
We have all experienced brokenness, and many of us may have gone on for years in a state of suffering seeking to be restored and healed. The paralyzed man waited thirty-eight years to walk into new life, and Jesus’ merciful hand was there to offer him that invitation. This was the same as the woman at the well whose sin and shame of having had five husbands separated her from others (John 4).
No matter what you are walking in today, what you have done and experienced, or where you are on your spiritual journey, Jesus is making all things new as we read in Revelation 21:5a: “The one who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” This includes each one of us who has accepted His invitation. God has seen and moved towards us, and He is restoring us through our walk with Jesus each day. We can wake up each day of 2025, seeing and tasting that the Lord is good, that His invitation is everlasting and that we can be restored, a new creation in Jesus as we see to live out our faith in Him.
In Christ, we are no longer sinners who struggle with sin and separation from God, but saints and a chosen people He is calling to himself who can face temptation and struggles in the world with a Spirit of power! I pray for all of us that we can revitalize our faith through daily prayer, reading Scripture, and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ as we seek and walk by the light of Jesus allowing ourselves to be restored into new creation through the process.
KB