2011 is here! Another year has passed into recorded history and we have now entered into a brand new one. Happy New Year everyone!

The marking of the turn of one year into another is a good time to ask ourselves some big questions. It is also a great time to set realistic, attainable goals for each aspect of our lives – spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally and in our relationships. To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

There are many good materials out there that seek to help us make the necessary changes (here’s a good article well worth reading). However, in all this, my heart always needs to be reminded of the gospel, as it is so easy to seek to gain by works, what God only makes available by grace.

Change is necessary, but it should be the overflow of a heart made right with God by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone. To think that God will love us more if we make a change is to depart from the truth of the gospel. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us. He did not wait for us to even try to get better. He loved us, while we were still in the filthy stains of our sins.

There are some people who decry all resolutions altogether. They do have a point because the human will is a lot more frail than we realize, and we constantly need to be reminded as to why we made a decision in the first place. However, if someone needs to lose 20-30 lbs in weight (as an example) the honest truth is that they will probably never drift into that. It will happen after a decision is made to make it happen and not before. Its never a bad thing to make a good decision, and January 1 is a good time to make the kind of informed decisions that are often needed. I for one will never discourage someone who tells me of their resolution by saying “well lets see how long that plays out.” We all know that gyms and fitness centers are far more populated in the first two to three weeks of January than any other time of year, but that the initial enthusiasm people have to get in shape tends to wane, but why discourage someone? That’s human nature and we need to factor that into the equation with any attempt at change. What we all need is fuel to keep the fire burning, not water on the fire. If you do ever fall off the horse, resolve to simply get back on. Your initial decision was a good one, and even if you fail once or twice, it is still a good decision and worth pursuing once again.

I feel I must say that I am aware that although most people in the western world might need to lose some weight (its usually a common theme in new year resolutions) some might actually need to put on a few pounds. Perhaps someone is constantly fighting colds and flu and such things because the physical structure is frail and needs the boost of a few pounds.

Whatever the need is, my appeal is that we as Christians make gospel driven changes. To make a change and then look down our noses on others who struggle to make that same change, is to betray the gospel. Pride is a subtle thing and so often entangles us, even as we seek to be rid of it. Surely we need God’s grace to even see our need for humility, let alone become a humble people before God and man.

All this reminds me of why doctrine is so vital. What we believe affects everything.

This morning, to start my new year, rather than reading a chapter from a self help book about how to make this year the best ever, I re-read a statement of faith by Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I took time and really pondered each word and noticed that in almost every clause, I could think of scriptures which would affirm the statement. It did my heart good to read it, even as I also ponder the resolutions I wish to make for my own personal life.

Here below is a section of the statement concerning justification. I would strongly encourage you to make the changes the Lord desires for you; and yet would remind you of something that is seemingly obvious, but often lost sight of or merely assumed. I would remind you of the gospel. Don’t ever assume the gospel. Let all you do be the outworking of the wonderful Gospel and its truth in your life. Let it be the hub from which all the spokes in the wheel of your life are connected. When you make the changes, always do so because you already are an accepted child of God because of what Christ has done, and not because of what you do.

So if you set your fitness goals and schedule your time and energy in that direction, do so on the basis of the gospel. If you lose the 12 lbs you desire, remember you will not be loved more by God than you are already loved right now. And when you have spent 2 hours at the fitness center and then see a friend who has not doing the same thing with their time, how will you view them? Is there something in you that will feel pride about yourself and haughty towards others? If so, ask God to rid you of your pride, even now, knowing that both your and their standing before God has nothing to do with weight gain or weight loss. Make gospel based and gospel driven changes; that is my plea.

When you set goals to spend more time with family, may the change be gospel driven. Even when you start a Bible reading plan that will make God’s word more central in your life in 2011, do so, not on the basis of a works program, but the overflow of a life in love with the Savior, who loved you before you ever thought of reading His word.

So while you look in the mirror and note the things you wish to change, before you put pen to paper and write out your goals for 2011, look in the mirror of God’s word and see yourself in light of the wonderful gospel of Christ.

The last thing I would say is “be open to making more than one resolution, and think beyond the confines of just yourself.” Perhaps there are a number of things you can implement into your daily or weekly schedule. In this regard, Don Whitney provides a list of questions to ask as resolutions are made:

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

These are excellent questions to ask, I am sure you will agree.

God bless, and have a great and happy New Year!

Here then is the Bethlehem Baptist Church statement of faith on justification:

In a free act of grace, God justifies the ungodly by faith alone apart from works, pardoning their sins, and reckoning them as righteous and acceptable in His presence. Faith is the sole instrument by which we, as sinners, are united to Christ, whose perfect righteousness and satisfaction for sins is alone the ground of our acceptance with God. This acceptance happens fully and permanently at the first instant of justification. The righteousness by which we come into right standing with God is not anything worked in us by God, neither imparted to us at baptism nor over time, but rather is accomplished for us, outside ourselves, and is imputed to us.

We believe, nevertheless, that the faith, which alone receives the gift of justification, does not remain alone in the person so justified, but produces, by the Holy Spirit, the fruit of love and leads necessarily to sanctification. This necessary relationship between justifying faith and the fruit of good works gives rise to some Biblical expressions which seem to make works the ground of justification, but in fact simply express the crucial truth that faith that does not yield the fruit of good works is dead, being no true faith.

Justification and sanctification are both brought about by God through faith, but not in the same way. Justification is an act of God’s imputing and reckoning; sanctification is an act of God’s imparting and transforming. Thus the function of faith in regard to each is different. In regard to justification, faith is not the channel through which power or transformation flows to the soul of the believer, but rather faith is the occasion of God’s forgiving, acquitting, and reckoning as righteous. But in regard to sanctification, faith is indeed the channel through which divine power and transformation flow to the soul; and the sanctifying work of God through faith does indeed touch the soul and change it into the likeness of Christ.

We believe that the reason justifying faith necessarily sanctifies is fourfold:

First, justifying faith is a persevering, that is, continuing kind of faith. Even though we are justified at the first instant of saving faith, yet this faith justifies only because it is the kind of faith that will surely persevere. The extension of this faith into the future is, as it were, contained in the first seed of faith, as the oak in the acorn. Thus the moral effects of persevering faith may be rightly described as the effects of justifying faith.

Second, we believe that justifying faith trusts in Christ not only for the gift of imputed righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, but also for the fulfillment of all His promises to us based on that reconciliation. Justifying faith magnifies the finished work of Christ’s atonement, by resting securely in all the promises of God obtained and guaranteed by that all-sufficient work.

Third, we believe that justifying faith embraces Christ in all His roles: Creator, Sustainer, Savior, Teacher, Guide, Comforter, Helper, Friend, Advocate, Protector, and Lord. Justifying faith does not divide Christ, accepting part of Him and rejecting the rest. All of Christ is embraced by justifying faith, even before we are fully aware of, or fully understand, all that He will be for us. As more of Christ is truly revealed to us in His Word, genuine faith recognizes Christ and embraces Him more fully.

Fourth, we believe that this embracing of all of Christ is not mere intellectual assent, or a mere decision of the will, but is also heartfelt, Spirit-given (yet imperfect) satisfaction in all that God is for us in Jesus. Therefore, the change of mind and heart that turns from the moral ugliness and danger of sin, and is sometimes called “repentance,” is included in the very nature of saving faith.

We believe that this persevering, future-oriented, Christ-embracing, heart-satisfying faith is life-transforming, and therefore renders intelligible the teaching of Scripture that final salvation in the age to come depends on the transformation of life, and yet does not contradict justification by faith alone. The faith which alone justifies, cannot remain alone, but works through love.

We believe that this simple, powerful reality of justifying faith is God’s gift, given unconditionally in accord with God’s electing love, so that no one can boast in himself, but only give all glory to God for every part of salvation. The Holy Spirit is the decisive agent in this life-transformation, but that He is supplied to us and works holiness in us through our daily faith in the Son of God whose trustworthiness He loves to glorify.

We believe that the sanctification, which comes by the Spirit through faith, is imperfect and incomplete in this life. Although slavery to sin is broken, and sinful desires are progressively weakened by the power of a superior satisfaction in the glory of Christ, yet there remain remnants of corruption in every heart that give rise to irreconcilable war, and call for vigilance in the lifelong fight of faith.

We believe that all who are justified will win this fight – they will persevere in faith and never surrender to the enemy of their souls. This perseverance is the promise of the New Covenant, obtained by the blood of Christ, and worked in us by God Himself, yet not so as to diminish, but only to empower and encourage our vigilance; so that we may say in the end, I have fought the good fight, but it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me.