New Year’s Resolutions: The God We’re Talking About

Mark 13:10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

As the new year begins, thousands of people all over the world make personal resolutions.  We type them up, write them down, draw pictures, hang them on our walls, tape notes to our mirrors.  We look back at the mistakes of the past year and the successes. Some keep it simple and try to lose weight or read more often; others aim goals like moving out of an apartment or traveling to the place they’ve always dreamed of.  We take the priorities of our lives and push further.  

The first goal you make is the one that instinctively leaps to your mind when you think about self-improvement.  What you can do to enrich your life this year? For me personally, the options are endless at first glance. Fly to Paris!  Write a book! Take up archery, conquer dragons and fulfill my destiny as the hero of the realm!

My next step is to narrow the options down to what I can actually do, foreseeably, within a year.  Instantly everything glorious disappears and I’m left with mere scrawny worms of resolutions like Take a summer chemistry class for college credit!

But now I ask a new question.  What if my first resolution involved neither killing ancient reptiles nor taking a class, but had to do with God and the Gospel?

Or rather, my first priority?

Mark 13:10 says, “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.”  In this chapter from the New Testament, Jesus says first when it comes to the Gospel’s priority in our lives.  

Mark 13 isn’t specifically about the Gospel.  It’s about Jesus telling his disciples what needs to happen before the end times do.  But I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that God should be first in your life and in mine, especially in light of the end times.  In order to endure the year’s challenges ahead, we need to seek God first.

When we write our resolutions, we should recognize the importance of God first.  Maybe your first resolution this year could be to spread the Gospel more often. Maybe mine should be, too.

When I finish making my resolution list, I usually feel inspired and proud at first.  Then, slowly, all the overwhelming stress of what I have to do creeps up on me, crushing my aspirations.   

Write a book?  Write three hundred pages?  Impossible! I can barely write three pages on a daily basis, let alone an entire book.  

Share the Gospel?  

Explain the entire crux of my faith to a stranger?  

Impossible!

I can barely function on social skills like mine, let alone share a message that’s been so bitterly contested for so long!

Sometimes we need encouragement and reminders of the God we’re talking about.  Buy our “Be Still Cross Unisex Jersey” and “Faith Over Fear Christian Jersey T-Shirt” today to encourage you to spread the Gospel and keep it first on your resolutions this upcoming year!