Setting the Captives Free: 3 New Year's Resolutions from God in 2021

2020—Toilet Paper, Elbow Greeting Rituals, and Mullets

Who would've foreseen the debacle that was 2020? A global pandemic that led ordinary intelligent civilians to hoard toilet paper, establish new greeting rituals involving their elbows, and cheerfully report their every banal movement to the authorities. But let's not dwell on the virtues (or otherwise) of loosely-held civil freedoms, lest the tin-foil hats unfurl. The real elephant in the room is this: where the heck did the mullets come from? It's genuinely perplexing; equally disturbing. I'm not sure 2020 will live it down. It will be that story that gets pulled out at family dinners and repeated for all of eternity... "remember the year people grew mullets again and thought they were cool?" I'm not talking about people that still have them—they are authentic, the real deal, they have staying power: they waited for the full cycle to come around and came out victoriously yet indifferently on the other side. Respect. 

Okay, so happy to put the mullet-year behind us? Great. But let's think twice about starting 2021 the same way we've started all the others—with a bunch of tired promises that we're only half convicted about and less than half committed to. 

Typical New Year's Resolutions

The top 5 New Year's Resolutions (over a 5 year rolling sample), according to Google (so it's probably true) is:

1) Eat healthier / diet (71%)

2) Exercise more (65%)

3) Lose weight (54%)

4) Save money (32%)

5) Learn a new skill or hobby (26%)

Now I'm assuming the top three, being over half of the responses each time, have numerous repeat offenders (me, for one). Recidivism aside, statistics report that 80% of NYRs are dropped by January 19—they don't mention how many limp through the rest of the year on the brink of death. Either way it's a pretty high failure rate. Why are NYRs so ineffectual?

Well perhaps because us humans are not great at keeping promises in general.  Do you know who is though? God. He's promised to redeem this whole mess we've gotten ourselves (and our planet) into. The Old Testament is full of the revelation that he will do so, and the New Testament is about the first stage of that fulfilment—the decisive entry of God into human history in the person and work of Jesus Christ: to save the whole world. Pretty ambitious right? On the cross he defeated evil for good. Unlike the mullet, which we thought died in the late 80s and has made a sudden & gruesome comeback. (Sorry about my obsession, perhaps I secretly want one). Jesus did it right, once and for all. When he said "it is finished" on the cross, he meant it.

But what does this mean for us now, and what does it have to do with those pesky NYRs?

What We're Really Looking For

Look at the list of typical NYRs again and think about this: what do we really want? I'm betting it's something like health, security, identity, which sounds suspiciously like those ancient gods of money, sex and power. Those gods which promise a lot and deliver little; and even if they did deliver, we are pretty short sighted right? I mean, our lives are a blip on the radar of eternity, and none of those prizes are coming along for the ride. 

But health, security, and identity need not have negative connotations. So I ask again, what are we really looking for? Amplify health, security, & identity and you get freedom, assurance, and transformation. In Jesus, we find what we're really looking for. Increase your focus on Christ, rather than on yourself, and you might just get more than you bargained for. As John the Baptist said, "I must decrease, so that he can increase." It's a zero-sum game. This way too, it won't be based on your own self-effort, which is, let's face it, elusive at worst and unreliable at best. 

So what are we to do? Nothing? By no means! Instead of focusing on your own NYRs in 2021, focus on God's instead. No word from God ever fails. Here's 3 to ponder:

GOD'S RESOLUTIONS TO ME IN 2021

1) To set me free - (deliverance)

Jesus said himself that he was in the business of releasing captives. He went about doing just that, both in his 3 year Earthly ministry and in his 2000 year spiritual ministry ever since. If you need proof of this, try hanging out with Christians more, or perhaps (ahem), different Christians.

Set me free from what? Addictions & afflictions, worry & anxiety, anything that oppresses us and prevents us from living out our full potential, and seeing God's blessings come to fruition in our lives. God is our remedy. 

2) To open my eyes - (assurance)

...To know him more. To know that we are loved by him, led by him, known by him. 

...To see what he sees and feel what he feels. To be his hands and his feet, to help the sick, to feed the poor, to bring the good news to those in need.

...To the person and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to the great hope he has called us to, to the great riches of heaven which are already at work in us and through us. 

3) To transform me - (transformation)

You mean like Optimus Prime? Well, yeah sort of. Not so sudden, perhaps. It takes time. 

This is really the flip side of Point 1, God is the ultimate alchemist: he takes our darkness and turns it into light. After all, darkness is only good gone bad. God makes it good again, and uses it for good.

He refines us, transforms us, and makes us more like him. The Bible says he refines us like silver, which is polished until it reflects the face of the refiner. After all, we were made to reflect his image.

Ultimately God promises us peace that surpasses understanding, a joy that surpasses our circumstances, and a hope that shapes our present lives to be a blessing to ourselves and to others.

Who wouldn't want that?

So What Do I Need To Do?

These promises really, reflect an ongoing process in the life of believers saved through grace, by faith in Christ. It is part of God's larger agenda to prepare us (and the world) for the coming kingdom, that final coming together of the New Heavens and the New Earth into a glorious New Creation, of which we are the first fruits. 

God did all the heavy lifting to make these promises possible, he paid a huge price for doing so. He's got skin in the game. He's good to his word. All he asks of you in return is that you spend time with him. Get to know him. Let him into your heart and life each day. Pray, worship, meditate on him and on his promises. Over time, you (and the people around you) will marvel at the results. I'm not saying you need to become a monk—just hang out with him, be you and do what you do, but with him. It's a better you, I assure you. It makes life, well, just better. 

Having said all that, I'm not saying you should write off your regular resolutions. Just pursue them in the right way. Once they're framed within the larger context of the freedom, assurance, and transformation you get from being with Christ; they will no longer rule over you like malevolent gods. They will be in their rightful place in subjection to Christ, and you might just find that they come true after all. 

By spending time with Jesus, his promises will naturally come to fruition in your life. Let me put it this way: when you have freedom, assurance, and transformation; you will get health, security and an identity throw in that cannot be shaken.  

C.S Lewis famously said, "Aim at heaven, and you will get Earth thrown in; aim at Earth and you will get neither."

New Creation: A father's perspective from the delivery room—on birth, rebirth, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher, asked Jesus what one had to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answered "you must be born again." Nicodemus mockingly replied, "what, a man must climb back into his mother's womb?" Apparently it was no less strange an idea back then as it is now. What did Jesus mean? Having just witnessed the birth of my son, I’ve been ruminating on just that. Yes that's me in the photo above, which is being used with my wife's permission of course! I write this now sitting by my wife’s bedside in the maternity ward, waiting for our newborn son to recover from the trauma of birth so that we can take him home.

 

My sister (who's given birth 7 times so is an authority on the subject) said to me, "Child-birth is like the gospel in action: our bodies are broken so that new life can come forth. God's presence fills the room." Being present during my son’s delivery, I can absolutely attest to that statement. When my son was being born and things started to go south (pun intended), I could do nothing but pray. I prayed fervently as the room filled with bustling blue-clad masked bandits, wielding cruel-looking utensils to the incessant battle-cry of blatting machines and my wife's anguished moans. If you've been in this situation you would know how useless I felt. Yet perhaps I was doing something crucial. Amidst my prayers the presence of God became suddenly palpable. Amidst the cries, a head, a shoulder, and suddenly a squirming mass flowed into the doctor's red-smeared gloves.

 

My heart overflowed. Then they laid him on the table and began to hook him up to tubes and masks and I could barely breathe, let alone talk. His little chest was heaving and sucking, his head all busted-looking and out of shape. My wife was in shock. There was blood everywhere. I was dumb-stuck. "What's his name?" The midwife asked. To my blank stare she asked again. "Malachi," I breathed, and he began to as well.  My mother-in-law and I exchanged a glance across the room, no words were needed, we were overwhelmed.

 

I wonder if God feels the same way when someone is choosing whether to accept or reject him. In that moment, the angels in heaven are hovering, tubes ready, masks ready, ready to cut the cord that will only work for a little longer before taking the person to their death (that is, their inevitable natural death whenever that occurs), ready to caress their lungs into their first breaths of new spiritual life. I wonder if God has his heart in his throat like I did. He is an emotional God, a feeling God, a personal God. He loves his creation, longs to be united to his human children. Every time a person says yes to God, all of heaven erupts in joy. A new birth! Another victory! Another person for God to enjoy in eternity! 

Eternal life is about quality, not just quantity. That's why Jesus said that you have to have it, in order to understand it. You have to be born-again. When my son was born, although he was already alive in the womb, he entered a different physical dimension of life previously unfathomable to him. When you accept Jesus, though you were already alive in the world, you will come alive to a new spiritual dimension previously unfathomable to you. New Testament writers use the expression "the eyes of your heart are opened." Just like a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time, your spiritual eyes will be opened to new realities. Much like a newborn baby, you enter a new dimension of existence. Now you can begin to comprehend what eternal life is. I think this is what Jesus was getting at in response to old Nico: that you can't understand it unless you already have some of it. As well try and explain to a baby in the womb what it's like to breathe air.

The metaphor of birth is powerful in other ways too. Like a physical birth, spiritual birth does not come easily, nor is it pain-free. The difference is that Jesus bore the labour-pains for you. 2,000 years ago he laboured on your behalf, nailed to a wooden cross near Jerusalem. That moment somehow became eternal, stretching forward into the future for all those yet to be born. When you accept Jesus and ask him to lead your life, his suffering on the cross becomes the labour pains that give birth to your new spiritual life. Your old life dies with his death, and your new life is born with his resurrection. You become a new creation. It is not easy to understand, then again, if you didn't know how a baby was conceived and brought into the world, you would probably never guess that either.

When you are born-again, you enter into a new sort of world, you become plugged in to the spiritual realities around you. They were there all along, but you've been recalibrated to see them. Kind of like Morpheus choosing the blue pill. You've now become part of the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus brought with him when he came to earth, but which has not yet been fully instated. It hovers in the background but suddenly becomes foreground to you. You can see it and feel it because you are now of it. You are part of the advance party of the kingdom which is coming soon in force. You have access to the kind of power and life that only heaven bears. You have been given this in order to share it and to bless those around you. To help prepare the world for the next phase: New Creation. You see, Jesus didn't just come for you. God's plan is to recreate the entire cosmos. Jesus came to redeem all of creation, to set everything right and to recreate the world the way it was supposed to be. This is his plan. And it is imminent: it may occur at any moment.

 

If you think this sounds crazy, wait until we get into what happens when Jesus returns for the second time. We are then given new physical bodies, geared for immortal life. No more sickness or sorrows. No more sore joints or bad livers. You will be born again again, in a sense. You will go from Human Flesh 1.0 to Human Flesh 2.0. You might even get to do some of the cool stuff that Jesus did after his resurrection, like walk through walls—who knows? Sound like Sci Fi? No way, it's much crazier, and actually true. But hey, if it doesn't make total sense you are in good company. Paul, one of Jesus' apostles said, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived, what God has promised to those who love him." 

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. This is not relevant to you unless you are first born-again, as Jesus said. You won't get the second if you don't ask for the first. It's a necessary in-between step. Take the invitation today. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and to change you. Ask for this new sort of life. Breathe for the first time. The agents of heaven are standing by. Like in the picture above, a new father awaits with abated breath, his heart in his throat. The doctor's hands are like the Holy Spirit, skilled, calm and assured, ready to bring you through safely. Jesus stands by to welcome you into a wonderful new creation, which you will enjoy now in part, and will one day inhabit in full for all of eternity.