It’s a new year, which means that now’s the time to become whatever you want to be. It’s the time for New Years Resolutions. It’s the time for the start of something new (and the time for a High School Musical song to pop into my head). It’s the new year, so it’s the time for a new you.
At least, that’s what we strive to do.I’ve never been one to make a bunch of New Years Resolutions. New Years Resolutions have a reputation for having an expiration date, and I don’t like making promises I won’t keep (or promises that I’m not expected to keep), so I just don’t make them any more.Don’t get me wrong, resolutions are great! It can never hurt to realize that we have flaws and we need fixing.

So, when the New Year rolls around, we resolve to solve our imperfections.

This year is the year. The year we’re going to be healthy. The year we’re going to clean our house. The year we’re going to be more diligent at work or school.We succeed (for a week or two) and then January 17 hits. January 17 is officially 2015’s “Ditch New Years Resolutions Day” (Source). So, if we’ve made it the whole two and a half weeks, we now have an official excuse to stop. Or, we can press on and maybe make it to the start of February.And February has its own set of distractions (ie- cute heart shaped chocolates and little Cupids floating around in the air). We’ll probably get caught up in the excitement (or disappointment) of Valentine’s Day, and forget all about the resolutions we made a month ago.When we do finally think back to the promises we made to ourselves, we’ll be hit by an over whelming sense of guilt. We didn’t do it. We failed. And even if we’re doing our resolution part way, odds are we still have room for some sort of improvement.

Let’s face it, left on our own, we’ll never measure up to our expectations. We’ll always be a bunch of failures.

We will never have the perfect body. Our work-out routine could always use a revamp. We could always be more loving to our families. Stop procrastinating. Eat healthier. Go to church more. Clean the house.

We mess up. We fail. But guess what? Jesus still loves us!

Jesus still loves us- even through our imperfections.There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we can do to make God love us less.He loves us for eternity. And, if we let him into our lives and declare him as our master, he will begin a work in us. If we are his, God is transforming us into his image.We are called to wear new clothes. We’re to take off our old garments of impurity, covetousness, anger, obscene language and the like and put on new garments of compassion, kindness, joy and peace. (See Colossians 3:5-15.)

Nevertheless, the fact remains that we will mess up- even if we have “spiritual” goals. We will still fail. We will still sin.

However: We’re not hopeless.

Even in our imperfections, we are not hopeless.

God loves us.He chose us to be his.He has made us holy. “For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus took on all of our imperfections. Through his sacrifice, we can be made right with God.

We can become a new creation- not because of our own resolutions, but because of what God resolved to do for us. 

Because of Jesus, we can be new.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17