Change Is Possible:

We have turned the page on 2016 and have opened to a new chapter in 2017. What will this year hold? It is an amazing thing that every year on January 1st we have an opportunity to make resolutions and start afresh. If you are like me than you have already made new year’s resolutions and are looking forward to keeping them. Whatever your resolution is, remember, that because of Christ you can change and keep your resolution. Allow me to explain.

Ephesians 4:24 says, “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Christianity means changes is possible. Deep, fundament change. It is possible to become tenderhearted when once you were callous and insensititve. It is possible to stop being dominated by bitterness and anger. It is possible to become a loving person no matter what your background has been.

The Bible assumes that God is the decisive factor in making us what we should be. With wonderful bluntness, the Bible says, “Put away malice and be tenderhearted.” It does not say, “If you can…” Or: “If your parents were tender-hearted to you…” Or: “If you weren’t terribly wronged…” It says, “Be tender-hearted.”

This is wonderfully freeing. It frees us from the terrible fatalism that says change is impossible for me. It frees me from mechanistic views that make my background my destiny.

And God’s commands always come with freeing, life-changing truth to believe. For example,

1) God adopted us as his children: We have a new Father and a new family. This breaks the fatalistic forces of our “family-of-origin.” “Do not call anyone on earth your Father, He who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9).

2) God loves us as His children: We are loved children. The command to imitate the love of God does not hang in the air, it comes with power, “Be imitators of God as loved children. Love! Is the command and being loved is the power.

3) God has forgiven us in Christ: Be tender-hearted and forgiving just as God in Christ forgave you. What God did is power to change. The command to be tender-hearted has more to do with what God did for you than what your mother did to you. This kind of command means you can change.

4) Christ loved you and gave Himself for you: “Walk in love just as Christ loved you.” The command comes with life-changing truth. Christ loved you. At the moment when there is a chance to love and some voice says, “You are not a loving person,” you can say, “Christ’s love for me makes me a new kind of person. His command to love is just as surely possible for me as His promise of love is true for me.”

Christianity is what makes change possible. You can fulfill your new year’s resolution. Change is possible!