Linus walked about with his eyes open as wide as possible. He just stared at Snoopy, glared at Sally, gaped at Charlie Brown. Lucy broke the silence by asking from sisterly irritation, “what are you doing?” Linus replied, “I’m practicing being a wide-eyed fanatic.” My pastor recently taught me that a fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts after he has lost sight of his goals. So, how you are doing with your New Year’s Resolutions? Fanatical, I hope not.
Resolutions indicate that we want to do better; however, intention is often mixed with emotion and the resolve we think we’ve mustered becomes an exercise in frustration. The changes we so enthusiastically desire are either abandoned or resurface with a vengeance and we embarrassingly make our way through the other 350 days of the year when we can anticipate rebooting our resolve with another set of emotionalized intentions.
What did you set out to accomplish this year? Here are a few things that crossed my mind:
1. Live a more Godly life.
2. Witness.
3. Give.
These are notable goals, but I believe Jonathan Edwards (along with Whitfield and a few others) would want to sit back and wait to see what fruit these seedlings produce. I believe this is why Edwards himself started his list of resolutions with objectives (a syllabus of sorts) explaining that whatever he accomplished would be first Godward, then selfward then manward. He qualified those objectives with two declarations: that he would do whatever it took to promote those things and should he fail, would repent, come to his senses and try again.
What course do religious affections run? I am convinced that resolutions that matter are found in revival; in other words, a made up mind must be a transformed one, not recovered, but born again. Or as Shakespeare reminds us not to compost the weeds. Edwards has been teaching me about revival in that as a tree buds and is covered with flowers, not all those flowers give fruit. Resolutions that matter redirects our limbs with fruit not explode them into flowers.
Resolutions that matter boast the object of your love. I believe it was John Piper who said to the effect that willpower religion, when it succeeds, gets glory for the will. Willpower religion produces legalists, not lovers. The object of love must be discovered first before boasting in that object can occur. We may hold a conversation like this:
Q: Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might?
A: Yes, you know I do.
Q: Are His words on your heart?
A: Well, sort of. I try to memorize scripture and have quiet time. I pray when I can.
Q: Do you, “teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up?”[i]
A: Not at that frequency . . . we have other things to do, too! I have to go to work, and so does my wife . . . and I have errands to run. When I get to relax, I guard that time jealously.
Q: Are the commands of God evident in the work of your hands and always on your mind?
A: Well, I suppose there are some things we could do less of, or not at all . . .
Q: Do you “write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates?”[ii]
A: Well, we homeschool or go to private school or . . .
Rationalization is easy; and, when we rationalize, the true object of our love burbles to the surface. This is why the Israelites were given the warnings, “watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”[iii] See, the whole thing starts with the premise that there is only one God and He alone is to be feared. How does God feel when we have inordinate love? “I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations.”[iv]
That saying, “if you love something set it free, and if it comes back to you it is yours” is hogwash. “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 Jn 4:19). Think of it this way: Do you feel most loved by God because He makes much of you, or because He frees you to enjoy making much of Him forever?
When I say that resolutions that matter boast the object of your love, I do not mean there is any pride on our behalf. That is not what I mean by boasting. What I mean is that if we love God, we carry out His commands without shame. When we have a made up mind about God, we have a made up mind about who we are and our place in relation to Him. If we love God, we should never grow bored of talking about Him, thinking of Him or obeying Him.
If we love God as much as we say we do, we should be devastated.
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[i]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Dt 6:7.
[ii]NASB, ibid. Dt 6:9.
[iii]NASB, idid. Dt 6:12.
[iv]NASB, ibid. Eze 6:9.
