Why Resolutions Fail

“Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
Romans 2:4 ESV

With the change of year, many of us make resolutions. We see things in our life that we want to change, and we resolve to do better. Maybe we want to eat better and lose weight. Perhaps we want to better handle our finances. Or maybe we want to take control of our speech.  But, whatever the case may be, we look at the new year as an opportunity to start with a clean slate.

Sadly, few of us make it even a month before abandoning our efforts. We quickly tire of battling old habits and desires, and go back to our prior way of life. And, in the end, we are no different than we were the previous year.

The same is often true in our life of faith. As we look to God’s Word, our sin is evident. And we want to do better. We want to leave these sins behind.

Once again, we strive to do better. But, we quickly tire of these efforts. And before long, we return to the sin we desired to leave behind.

We will never be free of sin this side of eternity. But, as we seek to do better, as we seek to turn from sin, we have the wrong motive. Our reason for making a change is insufficient.

We often try to change for our own sake, to make ourselves a better person. We try to change because we want to feel better about ourselves. We try to change in an effort to make ourselves worthy of God and his blessings. We try to change in an effort to improve our image and our standing in this life.

With motives like these, we will never make a permanent change. Once the battle gets hard, we’ll decide it’s no longer worth it. We’ll conclude that our efforts are futile and that true change is elusive.

However, when we truly recognize the kindness of God, true change, true repentance, is possible. Recognizing that God has provided salvation in spite of our unworthiness, recognizing that he loved us when we were unlovable, this repentance flows naturally. In response to his love, we want nothing more than to love this God in return. As we see above, God’s kindness leads us to repentance.

At this point, change that couldn’t be attained by our own willpower, that we were powerless to effect in our life, suddenly becomes possible.  And it’s the gospel that makes it possible. The message of God’s grace, and the reception of that grace, results in a sincere repentance and the power of God at work in our heart.

Our focus, then, must not be on the things we can do to change. Our focus must be upon Christ and what he has done for us. We must sincerely trust in the gospel knowing that, as we do so, he will be at work within us and that change will happen.