At the beginning of each year many of us talk about New Year resolutions. Fewer of us actually do any thing about them, and even fewer make them stick. The year whizzes by, and is soon over; and for most of us, nothing has changed.
Various strands of Protestant Christianity teach that “we are saved by grace through faith”. Put into modern language, this means something like “we receive the right to be adopted into God’s family as a free gift, not by working to earn this right, but simply by choosing to trust and follow Jesus, to do as he taught as best we can”. Then we take our place in the Christian family, study the literature of this family so as to understand what following Jesus means, give to support the community and to its mission, and so on. These things are consequences of following Jesus, not pre-requisites; but if we don’t do them, we are not really being members of our adopted family, but rather pretending to be only children - and that’s not much fun. To get the best out of faith, you have to live it, not just talk about it.
It’s the same with New Year resolutions. To get the benefit of them, you have to do them, not just talk about them. And if you do, maybe this year will be different from the last, in unexpected ways! Dare you try?