Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
New Year's Day is traditionally the time for resolutions. "I will do better in this or that way during this new year!" And in practice, these New Year resolutions usually fail before even February comes.
A wise writer has said, "Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand. ... The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you" (Steps to Christ, p. 47). Such promises and resolutions made to God are the famous Old Covenant. The children of Israel made the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai when they responded to God's promise by saying, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8).
Sounds good, doesn't it? And some dear people understand the Lord as approving of their making the Old Covenant when He later said, "I have heard the voice of the words of this people, ... They have well said all that they have spoken" (Deut. 5:28). This is often interpreted as the Lord's enthusiastic approval of their Old Covenant promise. But those who take this position don't read far enough. In the next verse the Lord sighs, "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me [reverence Me], and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them." Paul says that the Old Covenant "gendereth to bondage," just as Steps to Christ says (Gal. 4:24). That "bondage" brings darkness into your soul, even though you try ever so hard to be good.
No, your New Year's resolutions will not bring you victory and happiness. The Lord does not ask you to make promises to Him; He asks only that you believe His promises to you. His promise is the New Covenant; and for us to believe His promise is what makes Him happy. And in the end it makes us happy, too.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 2, 1998.
Copyright © 2011 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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