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From Resolved to Solved
Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year? If so, you have now had over a month to keep them. How are you doing? Here is a list of ten top New Year’s resolutions:
1 – Lose weight
2 – Stop smoking
3 – Stick to a budget
4 – Save / earn more money
5 – Find a better job
6 – Become more organized
7 – Exercise more
8 – Be more patient at work / with others
9 – Eat better
10 – Become a better person
Do any look familiar? Even if you don’t have them down as New Year’s resolutions, you have probably still realized a need to accomplish some of them in your life.
Nearly all of these resolutions have one thing in common: a need for self control. For many of them it is simply a matter of doing what we know we need to do. Simply a matter, yet not simply done – which is why they continue to be matters resolved instead of solved.
When we fall short of living as God would have us to live, it is not normally because we do not understand His word. It is normally because we simply fail to do what we know we need to do. We never face any temptation that is greater than we can bear, that does not have a way of escape (1 Cor 10:13). The problem is that we do not take the way of escape that God provides. Paul could relate. In Romans 7:7-25 he wrote about the constant battle to overcome the influence of evil and do what he knew he ought to do.
Paul also knew how to do more than simply resolve to do better. He knew that we must solve the problem by bringing ourselves under control. Just a few verses after writing about the problem, he gave the solution: “If you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). He described his personal solution in this way: “I beat (discipline) my body and make it my slave” (1 Cor 9:27).
Until we take control of our own bodies, all we will do is resolve. Let the beatings and deaths begin so that we may solve.
