Greetings Holy, Healthy and Happy People of God,

As I write this eNote to our faithful and devoted community of radical followers of Jesus Christ, I am imagining a new me and leaving behind the memory of the old me!  This new “me” is grounded in the revelation of Christ as a new creature and not resolutions about me that I simple write down.  Recently, while reading a devotional, I came across this quote. “All true Christian life,” writes Dietrich von Hildebrand, “involves the deep yearning to become a ‘new person,’ and an inner readiness for something fundamentally different.”  The Apostle Paul stated something similar: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”  The question is: Do we want the new or not?

New Year’s resolutions can obscure the profound transformation Jesus brings: “Behold I make all things new.”  This obscurity of self-improvement can happen in several ways.  Resolutions are generally self-referential, hence the obsession with diet and exercise.  Also, most resolutions stem from a sense of guilt, thus our incessant preoccupation with staying in better touch with each other and spending more quality time with loved ones we otherwise neglect.  Moreover, resolutions assume continuity with the present: improvement, but not transformation.  Finally, most resolutions rest on sheer will-power, not on God’s power.

So let’s rethink personal resolutions this year and move to personal revelations from God to become “new” so that we can become a greater Christian community.  Draw your circles really BIG around the promises of God so that without God’s intervention they stay dreams and not divine disruptions and ultimately destinations!

Hear the W.O.W., Words of Wisdom,
“Live like you are NEW!”